ed with
their late autumn flowers; the teams and smock-frocked men were going
home to the gabled houses, and the warm-lit cottages. There was odour
of the harvest yet in the air and the distant chiming of bells from the
Gothic tower which rose above the hamlet and the knoll of green. Each
little town we passed cast from its windows bright rays upon the
tremulous twilight; a great bar of fiery redness cut the lower black of
the coming night, showing me in shadow the rising of land towards
Chatham and towards London. Yet it was the peace of the scene that came
to me with the greatest power; the many tokens of home--above all, the
thought "I am in England." I could not help but carry my memory at this
time to the last occasion when, with Roderick and Mary, I had come to
London in the very hope of getting tidings of this man who now sat with
me in a Kent-Coast express. Where were the others then--the girl who
had been as a sister to me, and the man as a brother; how far had the
fear of my death made sad that childish face which had known such
little sadness in its sixteen years of life? It was odd to think that
Mary might be then returned to London, and that I, whom perchance she
thought dead, was near to her, and yet, in a sense, more cut off from
her than in the grave itself. And Black, whom all the Governments were
pursuing so lustily, was at my side smoking a great cigar, apparently
oblivious to all sense of danger or of hazard. Life has many contrasts,
but it never had a stranger than that, I feel sure.

It was after ten o'clock that the ride terminated; and, following Black
and Osbart into a closed carriage that awaited us, I was driven from
the station. I should say that we drove for fifteen minutes or more,
staying at last before a house in a narrow _cul-de-sac_, where we went
upstairs to a suite of rooms reserved for us. After an excellent supper
Osbart left us, but Black took me to a double-bedded room, saying that
he could not let me out of his sight, and that I must share the
sleeping-place with him.

"Boy, if you make one attempt to play me false," said he, "I'll blow
your brains out, though you were my own son."

Then he went to bed at once in a morose and foreboding mood, and I
followed his example quickly.

On the next morning Black quitted the house at an early hour after
breakfast, but he locked the door of the room upon Osbart and myself.
"Not," as he said, "because I can't take your word, but because