e hoop of the lock; probably in the sharp bang with which it
had been closed. The door was open for me!

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

TO SOUTHAMPTON.

There was not a moment to be lost. When the servant came downstairs
again from her room in the attics, she would be sure to call for the
tea-tray, in order to save herself another journey; how long she would
be up-stairs was quite uncertain. If she was gone to "clean" herself, as
she called it, the process might be a very long one, and a good hour
might be at my disposal; but I could not count upon that. In the
drawing-room below sat my jailer and enemy, who might take a whim into
her head, and come up to see her prisoner at any instant. It was
necessary to be very quick, very decisive, and very silent.

I had been on the alert for such a chance ever since my imprisonment
began. My seal-skin hat and jacket lay ready to my hand in a drawer; but
I could find no gloves; I could not wait for gloves. Already there were
ominous sounds overhead, as if the servant had dispatched her brief
business there, and was about to come down. I had not time to put on
thicker boots; and it was perhaps essential to the success of my flight
to steal down the stairs in the soft, velvet slippers I was wearing. I
stepped as lightly as I could--lightly but very swiftly, for the servant
was at the top of the upper flight, while I had two to descend. I crept
past the drawing-room door. The heavy house-door opened with a grating
of the hinges; but I stood outside it, in the shelter of the portico;
free, but with the rain and wind of a stormy night in October beating
against me, and with no light save the glimmer of the feeble
street-lamps flickering across the wet pavement.

I knew very well that my escape was almost hopeless, for the success of
it depended very much upon which road of the three lying before me I
should happen to take. I had no idea of the direction of any one of
them, for I had never been out of the house since the night I was
brought to it. The strong, quick running of the servant, and the
passionate fury of the woman, would overtake me if we were to have a
long race; and if they overtook me they would force me back. I had no
right to seek freedom in this wild way, yet it was the only way. Even
while I hesitated in the portico of the house that ought to have been my
home, I heard the shrill scream of the girl within when she found my
door open, and my room empty. If I did not