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With the dusk the spirit of unrest in her had deepened, and she had seemed to hear voices calling through the twilight of the woods. A thrush had perched on the topmost bough of a beech tree, and had uttered his desire, till the plaint had rung and rung into Denise’s heart. She had tossed her cloak at the bird, but none of the wild things feared her. And though the dusk fell, the song of the thrush seemed to thrill through the brown gloom.

Then night had come, and her cell had seemed small and stifling, a vault for a live soul. She had thrown her grey cloak over her shoulders, and gone out into the beech wood, following the path that led towards Goldspur manor. Her brown eyes had more than human vision in the darkness, and she knew the wood ways even at night. It was as though she went out to watch over the place, and to dispel the shadow of dread that had settled over her own heart.

Denise had come to the end of the wood where the grassland swept down into the valley, when she stopped to listen, putting her hood back so that she might hear more clearly. Her face was towards Goldspur, and she merged her body into shadow of the trunk of a great tree. Abruptly out of the night came the sudden sound of men shouting, a vague clamour that rose and fell like the noise of a wind through trees. Dots of light shone out in the darkness, jerking to and fro like sparks blown hither and thither by the wind.