The Woman in Black

Chapter by Chapter Summary

Chapter 1

It is nine thirty at night on Christmas Eve, and Arthur Kipps and his family have just finished a happy, festive meal at their country home, Monk’s Piece. The rest of the family is gathered around the fire in the drawing room, but, before joining them, Arthur decides to step out for a moment and take in some fresh air. As Arthur takes in the night, he is relieved to find that the chilling rain and fog that have made the house feel gloomy even in the days leading up to Christmas have dissipated—the night is cold and clear. Arthur states that his spirit has been “excessively affected by the ways of the weather” for many years.

Though Monk Piece is only two miles from a good-sized village and seven from a larger market town, there is “an air of remoteness and isolation” to the place. Taking in his beautiful estate, Arthur recalls the first time he ever saw it. One afternoon, many years ago, Arthur was driving through town in a pony trap—a small, two-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage—with his partner at his law firm, Mr. Bentley. Having reached old age, Mr. Bentley lived primarily in the country and came to London for business only once or twice a week, and had suggested that Arthur—then thirty-five and a widower for twelve years, self-admittedly growing old before his time—acquire a country home as well.

While driving along, Arthur spotted Monk’s Piece and was immediately certain that the home would one day be his. He stopped the carriage and spent a moment looking at the handsome stone house, trying to deflect the “extreme emotions” he was feeling at the sight of the place and yet yearning to look at it longer. Arthur settled into the feeling that one day, the property will be his, and felt suddenly light-hearted. Before returning to London, Arthur asked Mr. Bentley to let him know if the house ever went up for sale.

Some years later, the house became available, and Arthur made an offer on it, which was accepted quickly. A couple of weeks later, Arthur brought the woman he was courting, Esmé Ainley, out to see the house, and there proposed to her. Very shortly afterward, Arthur and Esmé moved to Monk’s Piece; on moving day, Arthur felt he had “at last come out from under the long shadow cast by the events of the past.” Arriving in town and greeting his new neighbour, Mr. Bentley, Arthur saw that Bentley, too, seemed to have had a burden lifted from his own shoulders—Bentley, Arthur knew, had always blamed himself for everything that had happened to Arthur up in Crythin Gifford at Eel Marsh House.

None of the darkness in Crythin Gifford, though, is near Arthur’s mind as he takes in the night air now, on the clear, crisp Christmas Eve. For fourteen years, Monk’s Piece has been the “happiest of homes” for Arthur, Esmé, and her four children from her first marriage. Though Arthur used the house only as a weekend home for many years, he retired permanently to the country at the earliest opportunity, and now lives here full-time. Arthur thinks about his family, sitting snug and warm inside the house—Esmé’s oldest daughter Isobel’s three young sons are asleep in the attic, and tomorrow will enjoy a bright and cheerful Christmas Day.

Arthur heads back inside, looking forward to sitting quietly with his family and smoking a pipe. He enters the drawing room, where Esmé is sitting with her four children—Isobel, Oliver, Will, and Edmund—and Isobel’s husband. Isobel is twenty-four, with a matronly air. Oliver is nineteen and Will is eighteen, and both are still slightly childish despite already being off at college. Edmund, the youngest at fifteen, is sullen and reserved, with dark black hair and a private nature. Arthur loves Edmund best of all.

Arthur sits down in his armchair in the cozy drawing room adorned with Christmas decorations, and begins lighting a pipe, but soon realizes that there is a pause in the room, as if he has walked in on the middle of the conversation. When he asks what’s going on, Oliver stands up and begins turning out the lights; he reveals that they are about to start telling ghost stories.

As Oliver, Edmund, and Will compete with one another to tell the “most spine-chilling tale,” they pile on ridiculous details and horror-story clichés, until the stories they are telling become as wild and silly as they are lurid. Arthur is amused, at first, but as the game goes on, he begins feeling anxious and uneasy. He knows it is nothing but a game, and does not want to dampen their fun, but he is having trouble disguising how uncomfortable he is.

Edmund and Esmé urge Arthur to take part in the game, but Arthur refuses. It is all too much for him—none of them have any idea what real horror is. Unable to bear it any longer, Arthur proclaims that he has no story to tell, and leaves the room—and the house—abruptly. After taking a long walk in the orchard and steadying his pulse and breathing, Arthur worries that he has upset his family. He does, in fact, have a story to tell—a horrific true story of haunting, evil, and tragedy, but it is not appropriate for a Christmas Eve fireside game. Arthur has long been unable to shake the memory of his terrible past and is distraught that he cannot be free of it even at Christmas time.

Arthur realizes that he must tell his tale after all—not around the fireside, as a “diversion for idle listeners,” but written down on paper in great detail. Perhaps doing so, he thinks, will exorcise the demons he has been struggling with for many years. Arthur looks up at the moon and the bright stars one last time, and prays for peace of mind and the steadfastness needed to endure the “agonizing” task ahead of him.

Chapter 2

The narrative flashes back to the beginning of Arthur’s terrible tale. It is a Monday afternoon in November, and though it is only three o’clock in the afternoon, it is already growing dark. London is enveloped in a thick fog, and has been for three days. It is a “filthy, evil-smelling fog”—neither sight nor sound can penetrate it. The fog is menacing and sinister and turns the city into a veritable maze.

The fog, however, does not give Arthur a sense of foreboding as he makes his way in a carriage through London towards King’s Cross station. Mr. Bentley, his boss (Arthur has not yet been made partner at the firm) has sent him out on a journey to a remote part of England. Arthur is barely twenty-three, and is excited by the prospect of a journey by train.

Earlier that morning, Arthur was summoned to his boss Mr. Bentley’s office, where Bentley began telling Arthur about “the extraordinary Mrs. Drablow” of Eel Marsh House. Mrs. Alice Drablow has recently died at eighty-seven years old, but was a loyal client of the firm for many, many years. An odd woman, she lived in an equally odd house in a small market town called Crythin Gifford—a house only accessible at low tide after crossing the Nine Lives Causeway. When the tide comes in, Bentley says, one is “cut off” until it goes out again. Bentley informs Arthur that Arthur is to travel to Crythin Gifford to represent the firm at Mrs. Drablow’s funeral, and must then go on to Eel Marsh House to locate the “disorganized” Mrs. Drablow’s private papers and bring them back to London.

Mr. Bentley assures Arthur that the business will take a day or two at most. Arthur is amused by the idea of a “reclusive old woman having hidden a lot of ancient documents” in her old, creaky house; he thinks the assignment sounds like something out of a Victorian novel. Mr. Bentley, too, encourages Arthur to “treat the whole thing as a jaunt.” Mr. Bentley tells Arthur to stay in a hotel this evening and be ready to attend the funeral tomorrow morning at eleven—a local man will help Arthur from there. Arthur asks for more details, but is hurried out when a client of Mr. Bentley’s arrives for a meeting. Arthur gathers his things and leaves the office, heading out into the “choking” fog.

Chapter 3

Arthur excitedly arrives at the train station and finds a seat in an empty compartment. He loves train travel, and feels cheery and cozy as the train departs London. After changing trains twice, heading northeast all the while, Arthur begins to feel uncomfortable—the air is cold and gusty, and the train he transfers to for the tail end of the journey is far less comfortable than the train that shuttled him out of London.

Arthur settles into his new compartment, and soon another man joins him inside. The two make small talk about the weather, and Arthur confesses he is saddened to find he traded fog for rain. The man warns Arthur that he has not escaped the fog—in this part of the country, “terrible” sea-mists roll up out of nowhere often, though the worst of them don’t reach Crythin Gifford. Arthur mentions that he’s staying at the Gifford Arms this very evening, but then, not wanting to discuss his business any further, begins reading his newspaper.

Arthur’s companion suddenly says “Mrs. Drablow” aloud. Arthur is startled, and then realizes that his companion has read the name “Drablow” off a large envelope of papers on the seat beside Arthur. The man asks Arthur if he is related to Mrs. Drablow, but Arthur says he’s only her solicitor. Arthur’s companion asks if he is bound for the funeral, and speculates that Arthur will be about the only one there. Arthur, curious to know more about the mysterious Mrs. Drablow, asks his companion whether she was truly a recluse.

The man, realizing he and Arthur are heading into a deeper conversation, introduces himself as Samuel Daily. Daily tells Arthur that when someone lives in such a place as Eel Marsh House, growing eccentric becomes “a good deal easier.” Arthur, spooked by the idea of such a house, changes the subject, and asks how far there is to go—Daily answers that there are about twelve miles left to Crythin Gifford, a “far-flung” and marshy town. Despite its obscurity, Daily insists, the town is a hospitable place. He offers to drop Arthur at the inn, Gifford Arms, on his way back into town, and Arthur accepts the offer.

Chapter 4

Samuel Daily takes Arthur to the Gifford Arms in his shining, spacious car. As he drops Arthur off, Samuel hands him his card; though Arthur doubts he will need it during his brief stay, he tucks it into his pocket. Inside the inn, Arthur is pleased to find that it is warm and inviting. He feels as if he is on a holiday, not in town to attend a funeral for business. Arthur drinks a glass of mulled wine and enjoys supper by the fire; after eating, Arthur prepares to head up to bed. The landlord, clearing away Arthur’s dishes, asks if Arthur is in town for the auction. When Arthur asks him to clarify what he means, he informs Arthur that tomorrow at eleven, several farms south of town are being auctioned off—afterward, there is a great luncheon and an open market.

Arthur tells the landlord that he regretfully won’t be able to attend the auction or the market—he is attending the funeral of Mrs. Drablow of Eel Marsh House. At the mention of the woman’s name, Arthur sees something like alarm or suspicion flash across the landlord’s face. Arthur tells the landlord he’s just Mrs. Drablow’s solicitor, and has heard she kept very much to herself. The landlord remarks that living where she lived, “she could hardly do otherwise.” The landlord bids Arthur goodnight.

Arthur chalks up the landlord’s odd behaviour to the claustrophobic nature of local “silliness” and small-town rumours grown out of proportion. Any “poor old woman,” Arthur thinks, would have a hard time in this dreary town being seen as anything other than a witchy character. Despite his attempts to reassure himself, Arthur senses that because the landlord and Mr. Daily both reacted oddly to the mention of Mrs. Drablow, there must be “some significance” in what each man left unsaid at the sound of her name.

After a cosy and warm night’s sleep, Arthur leaps from bed the next morning, ready to greet the day. Had he known, he says now, that that night was to be his last untroubled night for a long while, he might not have jumped out of bed so soon or been so eager to get to the funeral. Even now, safe with his family at Monk’s Piece, Arthur knows deep down that he has never in his life slept as soundly as he did that night at the Gifford Arms. Soon after, he says, his innocence was “lost forever.”

Arthur eats breakfast and sets out to explore the town of Crythin Gifford. It is a beautiful day, and Arthur finds the town quite cheerful—though when he heads away from the central square, he is surprised by how small the town is and how flat and quiet the surrounding open country. Arthur realizes that the town must be quite dreary in inclement weather, but as he believes he is only staying for a day or two, he feels quite comfortable as he takes it all in.

Arthur returns to the inn to find a note from Mr. Jerome—the man Mr. Bentley arranged to be Arthur’s companion at the funeral and guide in Crythin Gifford—stating that he will collect Arthur at ten-forty and bring him to the funeral. At the appointed time, Mr. Jerome arrives, and as the two make their way through the streets towards the funeral, Arthur observes the man. Mr. Jerome is short and middle-aged, blandly formal and “shuttered,” though courteous and conversational.

As the men approach the church, Arthur asks if Mrs. Drablow is to be buried in the churchyard or a family plot. Mr. Jerome is silent for a moment, and then admits that though there is a family grave, it is not in the churchyard—and is “unsuitable” for present use, anyway. The men are the first to arrive at the church, and wait solemnly for the funeral car—Arthur resisting all the while the urge to ask more about the Drablow family and their mysterious burial ground.

The funeral is melancholy, and Arthur finds himself “inexpressibly sad.” Towards the end of the funeral, Arthur hears a rustling behind him. He turns and catches a glimpse of a woman dressed head-to-toe in black. Arthur notes that her elaborate mourning garb has “rather gone out of fashion.” Arthur cannot see the woman’s face clearly due to her bonnet-style hat, but senses that she is suffering a “terrible wasting disease,” as she is very pale, with sunken eyes. Arthur has heard of conditions which waste one away, but is surprised to see that despite the woman’s frailty she does not look very old—perhaps thirty years of age. As the services conclude, the woman slips out to the churchyard, and leans against a headstone near Mrs. Drablow’s open grave.

Arthur, Jerome, and the rest of the gathered mourners join the woman in black at the graveside, and Arthur finds he cannot look away from the woman, who, despite her current affliction, bears “some lingering hint of a not inconsiderable former beauty.” As Mrs. Drablow’s coffin is lowered into the ground, Arthur bends his head and shuts his eyes in a brief prayer. When he looks up again, the service is over, and the sick-looking woman is nowhere to be seen.

While talking with the other mourners at the church gate, a strange sight catches Arthur’s eye. There is a school next to the church and, lined up along the iron railing which separates the church from the school, are twenty or so children standing silent and motionless, presumably having watched the entire outdoor portion of the service. Arthur attempts to smile at one of the children, but the boy does not smile back.

As Mr. Jerome and Arthur depart the churchyard, Arthur remarks that he hopes the “dreadfully unwell” woman in black from the service can find her way home all right. Mr. Jerome frowns, uncertain of whom Arthur is talking about. Arthur asks Jerome if he saw the wan-looking woman in the tall bonnet, but Mr. Jerome is silent, and actually turns pale. Arthur asks Mr. Jerome if he is all right, and Mr. Jerome answers only that he did not see a young woman.

Arthur looks over his shoulder, back towards the churchyard; the woman in black is there again, standing at the edge of the grave. Arthur supposes she must have concealed herself until the procession left the yard so that she could be alone at the grave. Arthur wonders fleetingly what connection the two women have, and then points the woman out to Mr. Jerome with his finger. Jerome grabs Arthur’s wrist in a tight grip. Arthur wonders if Jerome is having some kind of seizure, and asks him to release his grip. Mr. Jerome quickly apologizes for his “passing faintness,” and suggests the two walk back towards his own office.

By the time the men get back to town, Arthur notices that Mr. Jerome is looking much better. Arthur asks if Jerome is going to accompany him over to Eel Marsh House, but Jerome declines. He advises Arthur to cross the causeway any time after one o’clock in the afternoon—a man named Keckwick, who has always been the “go-between” to the estate, will come and collect him, and then bring him back to the inn in the evening. Arthur tells Jerome that there is quite a bit of business to attend to at the house, and suggests he might just stay at the house for the sake of convenience; Mr. Jerome “carefully” suggests that Arthur will be more comfortable at the inn. The two men shake hands, and Arthur goes off to the great luncheon.

The lunch is a joyous, noisy occasion, and though Arthur initially feels out of place in his stuffy funeral garb, the farmers make him feel right at home. One tells Arthur that Samuel Daily purchased a very big parcel of land at the auction earlier—Daily is a large landowner, and is, the farmer implies, disliked throughout town due to this fact. Arthur proudly states that as he is the solicitor looking after the affairs of Mrs. Drablow, he may very well be selling her estate to Daily sometime soon. To this proclamation, the farmer says nothing.

Arthur notices the time, and makes to get up to head back to the inn and change before it is time to head over to Eel Marsh. His neighbor solemnly speaks up and warns him that Arthur will not find anybody in town—not even Samuel Daily—who will have anything to do with Eel Marsh House, or any of Mrs. Drablow’s assorted other properties. Sick of everyone’s “dark mutterings” on the subject of Mrs. Drablow and Eel Marsh, Arthur impatiently asks why that might be. The farmer does not answer, though, and instead turns away.

Chapter 5

Keckwick pulls up outside the Gifford Arms in a shabby pony trap. Arthur was expecting a car and driver, but is equally eager to take a ride in the small buggy. He climbs up in alongside Keckwick and the two make their way out of the square and down the lane leading to the church. As they pass it, Arthur remembers the sick-looking woman in black, but his thoughts drift elsewhere as the journey continues.

Beyond town, Arthur can see hardly anything but the bright clear sky and the “sheer and startling” beauty of the marshes. As the pony trap draws near to the Nine Lives Causeway, Arthur realizes it is little more than a narrow strip of land lapped at on either side by water. Halfway across, Arthur can see Eel Marsh House rising in the distance—it is perched on a spit of land situated a bit higher than the causeway, so that during high tide it effectively becomes an island.

The carriage arrives at Eel Marsh House, and Arthur feels a blend of excitement and alarm. Arthur hops out of the cart and asks Keckwick how long before high tide—Keckwick says it comes in at about five in the evening. Arthur asks if Keckwick will wait outside the house for him while he works inside, but as his answer, Keckwick pulls on his pony’s rein and heads back across the causeway.

Before going inside, wanting to take in the “mysterious, shimmering beauty” of the land, Arthur decides to explore. As he walks about, he feels his senses becoming heightened, and thinks that if he were to stay for any length of time, he would grow “addicted” to the solitude and serenity. He spots some ruins in the distance, and ventures toward them. As Arthur grows closer, he realizes that they are the ruins of an old chapel; exploring the area, he comes upon a small burial ground containing about fifty gravestones. There is a decayed, abandoned air about the graveyard, and Arthur turns to head up to the house—as he does, he takes one final glance around the burial ground and spots the wasted woman in black from the funeral.

The woman in black is dressed in the same mourning garb she wore earlier—her bonnet has been pushed back, though, and Arthur can see that her face quite resembles bare bone, and bears an expression of “desperate, yearning malevolence”; she seems to be searching for something she wants, which has been taken from her. Arthur intuits that whoever took this thing from her is the object of her hatred and loathing.  As Arthur stares at the woman, he becomes possessed by fear in a way he never has been. He longs to run, but feels paralyzed by fright—just as he fears he will drop dead of terror, the woman slips behind a gravestone, goes through a gap in the low stone wall around the burial ground, and disappears from sight.

Arthur feels his strength flooding back—he is actually angry with the woman in black for inspiring such fear in him, and decides to follow her, ask some questions as to who she is, and get to the bottom of everything. He follows her through the gap, but comes out on the other side to find that the grass of the yard meets with the sand which separates the estate from the water of the marsh. There is no sign of the woman—nor of any place she might have concealed herself. Arthur feels frightened one again, and begins running, longing to put the graveyard, the ruins, and the woman as far behind him as he can. He does not look back until he reaches the house.

At the front door, Arthur fumbles with the key, but soon gets inside and slams the great door shut behind him. Arthur does not move for a long while—he wants company, light, warmth, and an explanation above all. He is more curious than afraid, now, and feels “consumed with desire” to understand who or what he saw in the graveyard. Arthur has never believed in ghosts until this day—after his encounter with the woman in black, however, and sensing something emanating from her presence, Arthur finds himself converted. He knows that though he does not believe in ghosts or spirits, there is no other explanation for the woman’s presence.

Somewhere in the house, a clock strikes, dragging Arthur from his thoughts of the woman in black. He begins moving through the house, turning his mind to the business at hand—uncovering Mrs. Drablow’s important documents. Arthur had created an image in his mind of a cobwebbed, filthy house stuffed top to toe with “the debris of a recluse”—but as he wanders through the house, he finds that it is mostly in order, though there is the smell of damp and must everywhere.

Arthur unlocks several bookcases, desks, and bureaus—all of which are stuffed with bundles and boxes of papers. Arthur becomes overwhelmed as he realizes that Mrs. Drablow has kept meticulous hold on receipts, letters, legal documents, and notebooks that will take forever to sort through—everything, no matter how worthless-looking, must be examined. Arthur realizes that it is pointless to start going through it all now so late in the day, and instead walks through the house, looking through each room. He begins to wonder how Mrs. Drablow endured such isolation here—his previous fantasies of enjoying the silence and stillness evaporate. He has had enough solitude for one day, and though there is an hour before Keckwick’s return, Arthur decides to begin walking back towards town rather than linger in the house any longer.

Chapter 6

Arthur walks quickly down the drive, glancing over his shoulder to see if the woman in black is following him. At the same time, though, he has half-persuaded himself that there is a logical reason for the woman’s presence both at Mrs. Drablow’s funeral and her mansion, and that she is flesh and blood rather than a ghost.

Arthur sets off down the causeway and finds that though underfoot the path is dry, the tide is indeed beginning to come in. Arthur feels small and insignificant against the expansive marsh landscape, and becomes lost in his own thoughts. He does not realize immediately that he can no longer see very far in front of him; he turns around to look back toward Eel Marsh House, but finds that a thick sea-mist has come up and obscured both the path ahead and the way behind. Arthur walks slowly onward, until he realizes that the most “sensible” thing to do is to retrace his steps back toward the house and wait there until the mist clears, or Keckwick returns to fetch him.

The walk back is a nightmare—Arthur focuses on putting one foot in front of the other, and tries not to look up, as each time he does he becomes disoriented. Before long he begins to hear the sound of Keckwick’s pony trap coming towards him and feels relieved, but soon realizes that the sound seems to be moving farther away instead of nearer. After a few minutes, he hears the unmistakable sound of the “neighing and whinnying of a horse in panic,” followed by the sobs of a young child. Arthur realizes that Keckwick must be ferrying a child with him, and has become stuck in the marsh, dragged under by the pull of the incoming tide.

Arthur begins shouting, and tries to run forward, but knows that to move farther down the causeway would be to risk his own life—he may not be able to help Keckwick or the child even if he finds them, and may even be sucked into the marsh himself. He decides to return to Eel Marsh House, light all the lamps, and try to signal the stranded travelers from there.

As soon as Arthur is back inside the house, he collapses into a chair and begins sobbing. After some time, he gets up and goes about the house, switching on every light he can find. He finds himself some brandy, pours a drink, and lingers in the sitting room to try and calm himself. Eventually, he falls asleep, and sometime later is awoken by the clangorous ringing of a bell. He is unsure of how long he has slept—he has lost all sense of time. He realizes that someone is ringing the bell at the front door. He stumbles through the hall and answers the door—he is shocked to see that Keckwick is standing there, and, behind him on the driveway, is the pony trap. The marshes are still and silent, and there is no trace of fog or dampness in the air.

Keckwick laments that the only thing to do when such a fog rolls in is to wait it out. He explains his lateness: after he waited for the fog to dissipate, he had to wait for the tide to change. Arthur is stunned. He checks his watch and sees that it is nearly two o’ clock in the morning; the tide has begun to recede, and the causeway is visible again. Arthur feels sick and weary, disoriented by the odd hours of his nap. He thanks Keckwick for coming all the way out at this hour, but Keckwick insists he never would have left Arthur overnight.

Arthur begins to ask Keckwick how he got unstuck form the marsh, but then the horrible realization that someone other than Keckwick—someone with a child—must have been what he heard drowning in the marsh earlier. He wonders who in the world had been driving through such a treacherous place—and why.

Arthur shuts off all the lights in the house and then gets into the pony trap. He and Keckwick make their way across the causeway, and Arthur falls into an uneasy half-sleep. He thinks of the horrible things he has seen and heard all in one day, and realizes that the woman in black must be a ghostly spirit after all. He wonders if the pony and carriage he heard sinking in the marsh were ghostly apparitions long-dead, as well. Arthur convinces himself that this is the case, and it actually allows him to feel calmer knowing that he has heard ghosts. Though he does not want to return to Eel Marsh House the following day, he decides to wait until the morning to figure out how to broach the topic with Mr. Bentley.

Back at the inn, Arthur crawls into bed. The landlord, relieved to have Arthur back even at such a late hour, has promised him he will not be disturbed early in the morning. Arthur lies down and falls into a restless sleep, suffering all night horrible dreams of the terrified whinny of the pony, the calling of the ghostly child, and the dark, hovering presence of the woman in black.

Chapter 7

When Arthur awakes in the morning, he feels weary and ill—his nerves and imagination are on edge. He rises from bed, takes a hot bath, and begins feeling a little bit better. As he eats breakfast, he reflects on the previous evening. Coming back from the marsh, he swore he would have nothing more to do with the Drablow estate at all, and would return to London at first opportunity. Now, in the light of day, he does not feels inclined to run away.

The landlord comes to clear away Arthur’s dishes, and Arthur apologizes for coming in so late the previous evening. The landlord says that Arthur’s late arrival was better than “an uncomfortable night anywhere else.” Arthur tells the landlord he wants to take a long walk; the landlord suggests Arthur borrow a bicycle, and Arthur is cheered by the idea of bicycling. First, however, he wants to speak with Mr. Jerome about sending an office boy to Eel Marsh with Arthur so that he does not have to face the manor alone again. Arthur vows to return to the house only to sort through the papers inside, returning well before dark and not exploring the grounds any further under any circumstances.

Arthur arrives at Mr. Jerome’s office and knocks at the door. Mr. Jerome answers; it is clear from the look on his face that he is not pleased to see Arthur, but lets him in nonetheless. Arthur explains that there is a massive amount of paperwork inside the Eel Marsh House, and that in order to prevent taking up residence in Crythin Gifford for a long time, he requires some help sorting through it. Mr. Jerome tells Arthur that he cannot help him—he is on his own at the office. Arthur inquires whether there is any young man in town who wants to earn some money by assisting him, but Jerome insists there is no one suitable.

Arthur tells Mr. Jerome that he understands what Jerome is getting at—there is not a soul in town or out of it willing to spend any time at all at Eel Marsh House “for fear of encountering what [Arthur has] already encountered.” Arthur reveals that he saw the woman in black again, and asks if the graveyard outside of Eel Marsh House is the Drablow family plot. Jerome’s face has taken on a sickly gray pallor, and Arthur understands how seriously Jerome is affected by any mention of the woman in black. Arthur considers asking Jerome to tell him more about her, and about what horrors Jerome has seen or heard of at the house, but decides against it—he knows that when he returns to Eel Marsh, he will have to rely on his own senses, and nothing more.

Arthur takes his leave, and Mr. Jerome expresses the hope that Arthur will not encounter the woman in black again. Arthur, putting on a show of carefree cheerfulness, urges Jerome not to worry about him, and hurries from the office.

Arthur returns to the inn and composes a letter to Mr. Bentley. He reveals that he has discovered a hoard of papers in the old house and will be in town for longer than expected—perhaps the whole week. He makes an offhand remark about Eel Marsh House’s “bad reputation,” and warns Mr. Bentley that this will make it difficult to secure any help. He puts the letter on a table in the lobby, with outgoing mail, and then takes the landlord’s bicycle out for a ride.

Arthur cycles out of town, intending to go straight to the next village over to have lunch at another country inn. Once out of town, though, he cannot help looking back at the beautiful marshes, which hold a strange allure despite the horrors he knows lurk within them. Arthur understands that his emotions have become volatile and extreme in the short time since he arrived, and wonders whether his friends and family will notice the change within him when he returns to London.

Chapter 8

After a four-hour jaunt to the next town over, Arthur returns to Crythin Gifford feeling positively aglow. He feels like a new man—he is not just ready, but eager to face down the Drablow house again. In his defiant mood, he is hardly paying attention to where he’s going, and nearly steers his bike straight into Samuel Daily’s motor car.

Samuel Daily lowers the window and asks Arthur if he has been out to Eel Marsh; Arthur proudly answers that he has. There is a brief silence between the two men before Arthur begins insisting that he is “enjoying” the challenge of cleaning out the house. Daily warns Arthur that he is “whistling in the dark,” and invites him over to dinner at seven o’clock that evening. He urges Arthur to get instructions to his house from the landlord, and then sits back as his driver pulls away.

Back at the hotel, Arthur begins making arrangements for the next day or so—he asks for the landlord to ready a basket of food for him to take over to Eel Marsh, and procures from town some tea, coffee, bread, biscuits, and matches himself. He purchases a torch lantern and heavy rain boots, wanting to be prepared for anything. When he tells the landlord that he plans to spend tomorrow night and the night after at Eel Marsh, the landlord is silent; Arthur knows that they are both remembering the frenzied state in which Arthur returned to the inn just the previous evening.

Arthur arrives at Samuel Daily’s house for dinner and is impressed by the imposing estate. He thinks that both Daily and his wife seem “ill at ease” in their grand home—they clearly do not come from money, and now that they have a lot of it, they seem unsure of what to do with it all. Nevertheless, they serve Arthur a delicious meal, and Arthur himself feels very at home. Daily is downright gleeful as he recounts the tale of his “rising fortune” to Arthur over dinner, and Arthur begins confiding in Daily about his own life back in London.

After dinner, Mrs. Daily goes up to bed, and Arthur and Samuel Daily drink port and whiskey in the study. As Daily pours Arthur’s first drink, he warns Arthur that he’d be a “fool” to go on with his business at Eel Marsh. Arthur replies that he’d never “turn tail and run” from a job, but Daily grows serious, asking Arthur if he experienced anything strange at the house. Arthur launches into the full story of his experience the day before, but concludes that he is more than prepared to return to the manor—and to encounter the ghost of the wasted-faced woman in black again.

Unable to change Arthur’s mind, Samuel Daily offers to have his driver bring Arthur back to the inn; Arthur says he prefers to walk. Daily tells Arthur to take his dog, Spider—a small but sturdy terrier—back to the manor with him in case of trouble. At Daily’s command, Spider sticks close to Arthur’s heels and follows him all the way back to the inn. In a strange way, Arthur is looking forward to tomorrow.

Chapter 9

Arthur awakes the next morning having slept fitfully—Spider has been at the foot of the bed the whole night through, and Arthur predicts he will be very glad of her company once they arrive at Eel Marsh. At nine, the landlord informs Arthur he has a phone call—it is Mr. Bentley, who tells Arthur that despite the odd-sounding tone of his letter, he must stay and continue work at the Drablow house until he has made some sense of the papers. By nine thirty in the morning, Arthur has packed up his bicycle basket and is on the road to Eel Marsh.

Back at the manor, Arthur works at creating a more “domestic” environment for himself to work in. He washes and dries some cutlery, stores his provisions in the pantry, and airs out some clean linens and blankets. He opens some windows and sets up a bin for disposing of unimportant papers, and sits down at a desk with a pot of tea to begin working. It is tedious sorting through all of Mrs. Drablow’s papers, which include receipts, prescriptions, letters, Christmas cards, and even shopping lists. Arthur tosses everything but the letters, and, at around two o’clock in the afternoon, takes Spider outside for a little break.

The air is crisp and fresh, and, feeling emboldened, Arthur returns to the little graveyard. He wanders among the headstones, trying to read some of the names, but everything is so weathered he can hardly make heads or tails of them. He is able to read “Drablow” on a couple of newer stones, and understands that this is the family plot Jerome spoke of.

Arthur returns to the house, brews some more tea, and settles down again to his dull papers. As the evening settles in and the sky grows dark, Arthur lights more fires and lamps but continues working into the night. At the rate he’s going, he thinks, he will be through by the end of another day and a half at the most. After eating a simple dinner, he locks up the windows throughout the house and heads to bed.

As Arthur prepares for sleep, he feels in a rather calm and unexcitable state of mind. The previous day’s events have nearly left his mind, and he is bolstered by the rather pleasant and uneventful day he’s just had. Arthur begins reading, and the dog settles down to sleep on a rug. At some point, he drifts off, and is awoken by a strange noise some time later. He realizes that the strange noise is Spider—she is at the door, every hair on her body standing on end, and she is emitting a low growl. Arthur sits up in bed, frightened, and as he does, he hears a faint, muffled bumping noise coming from somewhere else inside the house.

Arthur gets out of bed, though he feels shaky and nervous. He musters all his courage and opens the bedroom door—Spider takes off running down the hall, sniffing at each door, grumbling in her throat. Arthur hears the bumping sound again, at the far end of the hallway. He and Spider make their way down the hall to the end of the passageway; at the door, Spider again grows tense and begins growling. The door has no keyhole—Arthur has not opened it yet, and has no idea what’s inside. He hears the sound inside of something gently bumping on the floor. It is a familiar sound, but one that Arthur cannot quite place. He tells himself that there is simply a rat or bird in the room, which has fallen down the chimney and cannot get out.

Arthur hears another, fainter sound behind him, this time towards the front of the house. He turns away from the locked door and goes back towards his bedroom—there is nothing disturbed within it at all. He realizes that the sound is coming from outside—he looks out the window, but can’t see or hear anything but the ruffling of the breeze in the reeds.

Arthur returns to the locked door, but finds that the room has gone silent. Arthur tries to open the door, but finds that it is still locked. He returns to bed and reads two more chapters of his book—he cannot, however, fall back asleep.

In the morning, the weather has changed—the air is damp and cold, and a thick fog has settled around the house. Arthur lets Spider out, builds a fire, takes a bath, and begins feeling like his “everyday self.” He goes back to the locked room, but hears no strange sound coming from within. At nine in the morning, Arthur takes his bicycle and goes back into town for more food. He speaks pleasantly with Mr. Jerome on the street and does not mention Eel Marsh House. At the inn, he receives a fond letter from Stella, and by the time he cycles back to the marshes he is whistling and feeling fine.

Back at the manor, Arthur returns to Mrs. Drablow’s papers. He has found one interesting-looking packet of documents, and as he reads through them, he finds that they are all written in the same hand. They are letters dated between February sixty years ago and the summer of the following year. The letters are often addressed to “Dearest Alice” and signed “J” or “Jennet.” The letters reveal that Jennet, a young woman and a blood relative of Mrs. Drablow, was unmarried and with child. She was sent away, and rarely made mention of her child’s father. In Scotland, she bore a son, and wrote of him with “desperate, clinging affection.” The letters ceased for several months, but started up again in “passionate outrage” as Jennet faced pressure to give up her child for adoption. Jennet revealed her desire to “kill us both before I let him go.”

The letters soften as time goes on—Arthur intuits that Alice and her husband agreed to take in Jennet’s child and raise him as their own. The final letter urges Alice to love the child, but to remember that he belongs to Jennet alone, and will “never” truly be Alice’s. In the same packet of letters, Arthur finds a legal document declaring that the son of Jennet Humfrye—Nathaniel Pierston—had been adopted by Alice and her husband, Morgan Thomas Drablow. Arthur is about to open the rest of the documents in the packet when he hears Spider’s low growl again.

Arthur turns around and sees Spider at the door, tense and growling. He is terrified, but remembers his decision to confront the ghosts of Eel Marsh House—he is afraid that the harder he runs from them, the more they will come for him. Arthur opens the parlour door and Spider runs up the staircase, growling all the way, to the locked room at the end of the hall. The bumping noise is coming from within once again. Arthur is determined to break in, but cannot find anything to get through the door with. He steps outside with his torch to look for an axe he spotted earlier in the outhouse.

Arthur retrieves the axe, and is making his way back to the house when he hears the sound of pony’s hooves. He goes around to the front of the house, and the noise intensifies—Arthur realizes that the sound of the pony trap drowning in the muck he heard before was indeed a ghostly apparition. Arthur stands still waiting out the pattern of noises—the hooves, the squelching of the muck, the crying of a child, and a woman’s scream of terror.

Arthur is deeply distressed by the realization that such a dreadful thing did actually take place on Eel Marsh, and that the event repeats itself over and over in some ghostly realm. Arthur realizes that Spider is at his side when she lets out a long howling call. Arthur attempts to get Spider to come back inside, but she will not be called; Arthur picks her up and carries her back in, and when they are back inside the house, Spider fearfully sticks to Arthur’s heels. Spider’s fear motivates Arthur to remain in control of his own emotions. He pets the dog to soothe her, but soon she bolts back upstairs. Arthur follows her down the hall to the locked room at the end—and finds that the door is standing wide open.

Arthur can still hear the bumping noise in the room, but is too afraid to proceed down the hall. After standing immobile for several minutes, he identifies the sound—it is a rocking chair. The sound of a rocker, Arthur notes, ordinarily signifies comfort, safety, and routine—even now, the noise seems to hypnotize him into state of drowsiness and rest. Recalling the comfort of his own childhood nursery drives away just for a moment the sinister, evil nature of the house.

Arthur musters the courage to go into the room and face whatever is in there. He lights his torch and heads inside—it is indeed a child’s nursery. In the corner, the rocking chair is rocking gently and with gradually decreasing speed, as if someone has just got up out of it. Arthur shines his torch around the room, and is surprised to find that it is in immaculate order. There are finely laid-out clothes in the chest of drawers, as well as beautiful and numerous toys in a wardrobe. Everything is in pristine condition—not as if it has been sitting dusty and untouched for fifty years, but as if it was all just played with that very day. Though Arthur moves through the room and realizes that though there is nothing inside it to harm him, he feels a profound sense of desolation and grief.

Unable to bear the sad atmosphere any longer, Arthur leaves the room and closes the door behind him. He pours himself a brandy and goes up to bed—the nursery at the end of the hall is silent for the rest of the night.

Chapter 10

Arthur awakes abruptly in the early hours of the morning to find that a strong wind has picked up on the marsh—the windows throughout the house are rattling, wind moans and whistles through the chimneys, and the marsh is barely visible for all the fog. Arthur manages to doze off again, until he is catapulted back to wakefulness by the sound of a crying child somewhere out on the marsh. Arthur tells himself that there is not really a child stranded in the muck—it is a ghostly apparition—but still has trouble ignoring the cries of the long-dead ghost.

Arthur gets out of bed and goes out into the hall, preparing to go downstairs and make himself a strong drink. As he walks out onto the landing, he has the impression that someone has just gone past him on the stairs, though he has heard not even a footstep. Arthur wonders if there is in fact another human living in the house as he tries desperately to come up with a rational explanation for the strange things happening to him. He eventually settles into the knowledge that there is no one else living in the house—whoever was in the rocker and whoever just passed by him on the stairs is not “real.” At this thought, Arthur begins to wonder what “real” even means to him anymore.

Arthur, realizing he needs some light, goes back to his bedroom and retrieves the torch. He stumbles over Spider, however, and drops it—the glass within breaks. Arthur feels frustrated and comes close to weeping. He begins banging his fists on the floor until they throb. Spider comes over to him and scratches at his arm; Arthur wraps her in a hug and is comforted by her presence. Arthur knows there is a candle on the table near the bed in the nursery, and struggles to muster the courage to go down the hall, into the haunted room, and retrieve it. As he wrestles with his terror, he realizes that it will either escalate until he grows mad, or he will be able to topple it and become in even greater possession of himself than he has ever been.

Arthur gets to his feet, goes to the nursery, and retrieves the candle. Though there is nothing terrifying awaiting him in the nursery, he feels intense feelings of grief, sadness, and despair again—it is though he has, in entering the room, become another person, or at least been flooded by another person’s feelings. As soon as he steps out of the room, he feels like himself again.

Arthur returns to his room and lights the candle. According to his watch, it is barely three o’clock in the morning, and he desperately hopes that the candle will last until the light of dawn. He begins reading and falls asleep eventually, waking up into a watery dawn at the sound of Spider’s whines—she needs to go outside.

Arthur takes Spider out the front door. As he stands waiting for her to finish relieving herself, he decides to put on a coat and boots and go for a walk. Just then, he hears the sound of someone whistling—as if to summon a dog. Spider sets off as if after a hare, running away from the safety of the yard and into the wet marsh. Arthur knows there is no one out on the marsh whistling for Spider—it is yet another nonhuman apparition.

Arthur watches in horror as Spider is pulled into the mud. He takes off after her, risking his own life to save hers. Realizing that if he is not careful, he, too will be pulled into the muck, Arthur lies down so as to distribute his weight across the earth more evenly, and, with great difficulty, wrestles Spider from the quicksand-like mud. He eventually heaves Spider onto his chest, and the two of them lie silently, recovering from their frightening ordeal. As Arthur regains his strength, he slowly gets up and scoops Spider up in his arms. As he approaches Eel Marsh House, he looks up; in one of the upper windows, he sees the wasted-faced woman in black peering down at him. Exhausted and terrified, Arthur collapses on the front lawn as the sound of an approaching pony trap echoes down the causeway.

Chapter 11

Arthur feels a bright light boring through his eyes, straight to his brain. The light disappears, and he opens his eyes; he is propped up on the couch in the parlor, and Samuel Daily’s concerned face is looming over him. Arthur sits up, but the room spins, and he is forced to lie back down. He remembers the events of the morning; chasing Spider across the marsh, struggling to free her, and at last spying the woman in black at the nursery window.

Samuel Daily hands Arthur a glass of water and confesses that he was so worried about Arthur he could not rest, and drove his own pony trap out to check up on him. Arthur is relieved that the sound of the pony trap he heard coming down the causeway was real after all. Arthur is grateful, and Daily tells him to rest a bit—once he is feeling better, he should gather his things and prepare to leave. Daily insists that he will not leave Arthur alone in the house even a moment longer.

Arthur lies back on the sofa and wishes he could uncover the reason behind the terrible ghostly hauntings he has encountered at Eel Marsh House; more than that, he wishes he could understand how the hatred, malevolence, grief, and despair of someone else could so easily enter his own soul. Arthur does not want to leave the mystery unexplained—especially because he knows that at some point, some other poor soul will have to come back to the house and finish the work Arthur could not.

Arthur stands and begins walking around the room in an attempt to get his bearings. He confesses to Samuel Daily that he is grateful to leave the house and all the papers within it behind—though he does, for the sake of his own curiosity, wish to bring the packet of letters he was looking over the previous night along with him. With that, Daily goes through the downstairs, shutting up the windows and putting out the lamps and fires; Arthur retrieves the packet of letters and his few belongings from upstairs, no longer afraid now that he knows he is leaving Eel Marsh House. Though he is uncertain of whether he will ever return, he knows at least one thing—he will not come back here alone.

Arthur packs his belongings and leaves the bedroom—but before heading back downstairs, he cannot resist looking back down the passageway to the nursery, where the door is ajar. Reassured by Samuel Daily’s presence downstairs, Arthur peers inside. The room is in a state of disarray “as might have been caused by a gang of robbers, bent on mad, senseless destruction.” The bedclothes have been disturbed, the toys have been thrown about, and the clothes have been dragged from their drawers. The rocking chair, which was once in the corner, is now at the very center of the room.

Arthur climbs up into Samuel Daily’s pony trap, and Daily sets Spider on Arthur’s lap. As they move across the causeway, Arthur sits very still, as if in a trance. He looks back only once at Eel Marsh House, and does not see the woman in black in the nursery window. He faces front again, turning his eyes away from the house for what he “fervently pray[s]” is the very last time.

Back at the Daily house, Arthur finds that a large room has been prepared for him. Samuel Daily helps Arthur to bed and lets him sleep for the rest of the morning. Spider is bathed and groomed and sent up to Arthur’s room to keep him company. Arthur rests, but cannot sleep; he is too disturbed by all that has befallen him. He writes a “guarded” letter to Mr. Bentley and a more detailed one to Stella, informing them of what has happened to him, though he does not reveal the full extent of his distress to either.

At lunch, The Dailys are attentive and kind to Arthur, and insist that he stay with them a day or two longer and recover before returning to London. Arthur now feels no shame about leaving his job unfinished; when a man is physically threatened, he believes, to flee is cowardice, but when the supernatural threatens his very soul and sanity, retreat is “the most prudent course” by far. Though he is unashamed, Arthur does feel angry that his arrogance and confidence were proven wrong, and that whatever malevolent force haunts Eel Marsh House has bested him.

After lunch, Arthur returns to the packet of letters and begins sorting through them. He attempts to deduce who Jennet was—he realizes she must have been a blood relative of Mrs. Drablow, as evidenced by her surrender of her own child to the woman, and was likely even Alice’s sister. As Arthur reads Jennet’s letters again, he feels deeply sorry for her. After rereading them, he turns to the rest of the papers in the packet—they are three death certificates. The first is of the boy, Nathaniel Drablow, who died at six years old of drowning. The next, bearing exactly the same date, belongs to a woman named Rose Judd—the Drablows’ nurse.

Arthur feels a sickening sensation rise up from his stomach, and yet forces himself to look at the last death certificate. It belongs to Jennet Humfrye, who died a spinster at age thirty-six of “heart failure.” Agitated, Arthur calls for Spider and goes out to take a long turn outdoors. As he walks, he concentrates on the papers he has just read, and the story they illuminate. He now understands that the pony trap carrying Nathaniel and his nursemaid had somehow veered off into the marsh and been swallowed up. Now, on the marshes, the chilling event repeats itself again and again.

Jennet, the boy’s mother, Arthur realizes, must have died of a wasting disease twelve years later. The child’s memory was preserved in the nursery, and Jennet, in death, began haunting the room, distilling the full intensity of her grief, hatred, and desire for revenge within it. Arthur remains troubled by the force of the ghost’s emotions, and determines to relay the full story to Samuel Daily after dinner.

Back in the study after supper, Arthur finishes illuminating the tale of Eel Marsh House to Samuel Daily. He confesses that though it has been just a few days since he arrived in Crythin Gifford, he feels like “another man.” Daily admits that Arthur has been through some rough seas, and Arthur expresses his relief to be “in the calm after the storm.” Daily’s face, however, is still troubled.

Arthur feels that Samuel Daily is holding something more back—perhaps more information about the house and the Drablow family. Arthur pressures Daily to tell him the full truth, and Daily says sadly that though Arthur gets to return to London tomorrow and leave the whole thing behind, the town of Crythin Gifford has to live with “whatever will surely follow.” For fifty years, many denizens of the town—including Jerome and Keckwick—have suffered the curse of Eel Marsh House.

Samuel Daily reveals that after giving her child to her sister, Jennet became inconsolable. She took up residence in Crythin Gifford, away from the house, and begged her sister to have contact with young Nathaniel. Alice Drablow eventually consented after Jennet threatened violence against their family. As Jennet visited with the boy more and more over the years, he developed an attachment to her, and Jennet planned to take him away; before she could do so, though, Keckwick—the family’s driver—steered his pony trap carrying Nathaniel and the boy’s nursemaid into the marsh during a sudden fog. Jennet watched the whole incident from an upper window. Only Keckwick survived.

After the bodies were recovered, Jennet began to go mad. On top of her mental instability, she suffered physically, and developed a disease that caused her to waste away. When she walked through the streets of town, she terrified young children, and eventually died “in hatred and misery.” Since her death, the town has been plagued by hauntings. Arthur speculates that now that Mrs. Drablow, the object of Jennet’s hatred, is dead, the hauntings will cease. Samuel Daily, however, continues on with his story.

Wherever the woman in black has been seen, Samuel Daily says, there has been “one sure and certain result”—after a sighting, a child in town has always died in some “violent or dreadful circumstance,” often in an accident or an illness. Mr. Jerome’s own child, Daily reveals, was a victim of the woman in black. Arthur wonders whether the deaths are a coincidence, but Mr. Daily says he holds no doubts that the woman in black causes them. Arthur, seeing Samuel’s assurance, says he believes him, and the two sit in silence.

Arthur goes up to bed, ready to return to London in the morning. All night, though, he suffers turbulent nightmares and awful sweats; when he wakes up, he is nauseated and feverish, and becomes confined to bed for several days. The delirium passes by the end of the week, and though Arthur is left exhausted and weak, he begins returning to himself. The worst part of the illness, he remembers now, was not the physical torment, but the psychological distress—he felt as he lay in his sickbed that the woman in black was haunting him even there, and his ears constantly rang with the sounds of Nathaniel’s cries as he drowned.

After twelve days, Arthur has recovered completely. As he sits one day in a chair after lunch near the drawing room window, he watches a robin on a stone urn outside, and delights in the quiet, ordinary nature of the moment. He hears voices at the front of the house, and then footsteps—someone calls his name and he turns, delighted to see his dear fiancée, Stella.

Chapter 12

The following morning, Stella and Arthur return to London. With Stella by his side, Arthur resolves to put the whole terrible affair behind him. He is sad to part with the Dailys, though, and insists they visit him in London. As Arthur and Stella head for the train station in Samuel Daily’s car, Arthur reflects on a question he asked Daily just before leaving. He asked if a child in Crythin Gifford had yet fallen ill or died during the time he was stricken with fever; Samuel answered that nothing had happened to any child—yet. Arthur prayed aloud that the chain of terror had been broken.

Arthur writes that he has only one last thing left to tell—he can scarcely bring himself to write it out, but has summoned up the very last of his strength, which has been depleted in reliving these past horrors, to tell the story all the way through to its end for the first time. Arthur reveals that after returning to London, he and Stella were married within six weeks. They did not want to wait—Arthur had an urgent sense of time in the wake of his ordeal and was determined to seize upon any joy he could find.

A little over a year after their marriage, Stella gave birth to a son whom they named Joseph Arthur Samuel. Samuel Daily was the child’s godfather; they saw Mr. Daily in London often, but never spoke of Eel Marsh or Crythin Gifford. Arthur hardly ever even thought of his terrible time there any longer, so happy was he in his life with Stella and their child. He was not prepared, he writes, for what was to come.

When their son was about a year old, Arthur and Stella took him a fair in a large park about ten miles out of London. It was festive and joyful, and rides and games abounded. Stella wanted to take the baby Joseph on a donkey ride, but the baby, afraid, protested, and instead pointed happily to a nearby pony trap. Stella took the child for a ride, and Arthur happily watched them trot off around a bend. Looking over the other festival-goers, Arthur spotted a familiar face: the woman in black, standing away from the crowd, hiding behind the trunk of a tree.

Arthur and the woman in black made eye contact, and as she held his gaze, he felt a deep and penetrating fear. He could feel the hatred, bitterness, and malevolence emanating from Jennet just as he did in the nursery back at Eel Marsh House. The pony trap came trotting back towards Arthur, and he broke eye contact with Jennet, determined to retrieve Stella and Joseph at once and return home. As they approached, however, Jennet stepped into the pony’s path, causing the animal to rear and swerve before taking off on a wild tear. The carriage hit a tree with a sickening crack, and Arthur ran to it.

Bystanders lifted Stella from the cart; her neck had been broken along with her legs, but she was still conscious. Joseph, however, had been thrown against a nearby tree and now laid crumpled and dead in the grass. Ten months later, Arthur reports, Stella died of her injuries; Jennet Humfrye had at last taken her revenge.