He was gone.  Blindly she obeyed him; blindly she moved towards the bridge that spanned the stream.  She was trembling so much that she could hardly walk, but almost mechanically she urged herself on.  No other course was open to her.

She reached the bridge, and leaned upon the handrail.  She thought the beating of her heart would suffocate her.  She strained her ears to listen, but she could hear nought else; and for a time she actually lacked the physical strength to turn and look.

At last, after the passage of many minutes, she summoned her sinking courage.  Faint and dizzy still, she managed to raise her head.  The moonlight danced in her eyes, but with immense effort she compelled herself to look back.

The next instant utter amazement seized and possessed her, dominating her fear.  Nap was standing just beyond the outspreading boughs of the cedar, a straight relentless figure, with the arrogance of complete mastery in every line, while at his feet grovelled and whimpered the great half-breed, Tawny Hudson.

Nap was speaking.  She could not hear what he said, but spell-bound she watched, while a curious sensation of awe tingled through her.  The man was so superbly self-confident.

Suddenly she saw him stoop and take something from his prostrate enemy.  A sharp doubt assailed her.  She saw the wretched Tawny cringe lower and cover his face.  She saw the moonlight glint upon the thing in Nap’s hand.

He seemed to be considering it, for he turned it this way and that, making it flash and flash again.  And then abruptly, with a swift turn of the wrist, he spun it high into the air.  It made a shining curve, and fell with a splash into the stream.  She saw the widening ripples from where she stood.

But she did not stay to watch them.  Her attention was focussed upon the scene that was being enacted before her.

It was very nearly over.  Tawny Hudson had lifted his head, and she saw submission the most abject on his upraised face.  He seemed to be pleading for something, and after a moment, with the faintest shrug of the shoulders, Nap lifted one hand and made a curious gesture above him.  The next instant he turned upon his heel and came towards her, while Tawny Hudson got up and slunk away into the shadows.

Anne awaited him, standing quite motionless.  She knew now what had happened.  He had grappled with the man’s will just as once he had grappled with hers.  And he had conquered.  She expected him to approach her with the royal swagger of victory, and involuntarily she shrank, dreading to encounter him in that mood, painfully aware of her own weakness.

He came to her; he stood before her.  “Anne,” he said, “forgive me!”

She gazed at him in astonishment.  “Forgive you!” she repeated.  “But why?”

“I have no right to practise the black arts in your presence,” he said, “though as a matter of fact there was no other way.  I’ve frightened the poor devil out of his senses.  Aren’t you frightened too?”