In a moment it had come home to me, and with
the knowledge a keen and sickening dread. Why had this man followed my
mother, and why did her mantilla lie thus upon the ground?
I turned and sped like a deer back to where I had seen the lace. All the
way the footprints went before me. Now I was there. Yes, the wrapping
was hers, and it had been rent as though by a rude hand; but where was
she?
With a beating heart once more I bent to read the writing of the
footsteps. Here they were mixed one with another, as though the two had
stood close together, moving now this way and now that in struggle. I
looked up the path, but there were none. Then I cast round about like
a beagle, first along the river side, then up the bank. Here they were
again, and made by feet that flew and feet that followed. Up the bank
they went fifty yards and more, now lost where the turf was sound, now
seen in sand or loam, till they led to the bole of a big oak, and were
once more mixed together, for here the pursuer had come up with the
pursued.
Despairingly as one who dreams, for now I guessed all and grew mad with
fear, I looked this way and that, till at length I found more footsteps,
those of the Spaniard. These were deep marked, as of a man who carried
some heavy burden. I followed them; first they went down the hill
towards the river, then turned aside to a spot where the brushwood was
thick.
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