woman in the shawl by waiting near the churchyard until she came back -- although it seemed more than doubtful whether she could give me the information of which I was in search. The person who had delivered the letter was of little consequence. The person who had written it was the one centre of interest, and the one source of information, and that person I now felt convinced was before me in the churchyard.

While these ideas were passing through my mind I saw the woman in the cloak approach close to the grave, and stand looking at it for a little while. She then glanced all round her, and taking a white linen cloth or handkerchief from under her cloak, turned aside towards the brook. The little stream ran into the churchyard under a tiny archway in the bottom of the wall, and ran out again, after a winding course of a few dozen yards, under a similar opening. She dipped the cloth in the water, and returned to the grave. I saw her kiss the white cross, then kneel down before the inscription, and apply her wet cloth to the cleansing of it.

After considering how I could show myself with the least possible chance of frightening her, I resolved to cross the wall before me, to skirt round it outside, and to enter the churchyard again by the stile near the grave, in order that she might see me as I approached. She was so absorbed over her employment that she did not hear me coming until I had stepped over the stile. Then she looked up, started to her feet with a faint cry, and stood facing me in speechless and motionless terror.

`Don't be frightened,' I said. `Surely you remember me?'

I stopped while I spoke -- then advanced a few steps gently -- then stopped again -- and so approached by little and little till I was close to her. If there had been any doubt still left in my mind, it must have been now set at rest. There, speaking affrightedly for itself -- there was the same face confronting me over Mrs Fairlie's grave which had first looked into mine on the high-road by night.

`You remember me?' I said. `We met very late, and I helped you to find the way to London. Surely you have not forgotten that?'

Her features relaxed, and she drew a heavy breath of relief. I saw the new life of recognition stirring slowly under the deathlike stillness which fear had set on her face.

`Don't attempt to speak to me just yet,' I went on. `Take time to recover yourself -- take time to feel quite certain that I am a friend.'

`You are very kind to me,' she murmured. `As kind now as you were then.'

She stopped, and I kept silence on my side. I was not granting time for composure to her only, I was gaining time also for myself. Under the wan wild evening light, that woman and I were met together again, a grave between us, the dead about us, the lonesome hills closing us round on every side. The time, the place, the circumstances under which we now stood face to face in the evening stillness of that dreary valley -- the lifelong interests which might hang suspended on the next chance words that passed between us -- the sense that, for aught I knew to the contrary, the whole future of Laura Fairlie's life might be determined, for good or for evil, by my winning or losing the confidence of the forlorn creature who stood trembling by her mother's grave -- all threatened to shake the steadiness and the self-control on which every inch of the progress I might yet make now depended. I tried hard, as I felt this, to possess myself of all my resources; I did my utmost to turn the few moments for reflection to the best account.

`Are you calmer now?' I said, as soon as I thought it time to speak again. `Can you talk to me without feeling frightened, and without forgetting that I am a friend?'

`How did you come here?' she asked, without noticing what I had just said to her.