head and laughed.

"I should get down quickly enough," he said to himself, "but what about
getting back?"

Drawing in his head, he felt for--as it was getting very dark--one end
of the thin rope, and then, mounting a stool, he passed the strong
hempen twist over the beam, which just allowed room for it to pass,
knotted the end, made a slip noose, drew it tight, and then, feeling for
the other end of the coil, he began to run it out through the open
dormer, listening with wild exultation to the passage of this narrow
high-road to liberty over the rustling ivy.

It was all excitement now. There was no room for hesitation, as,
passing one leg out of the window, holding on to the centre support the
while, he drew out the other, lowered himself a little, reaching out
with his feet so as to get them beyond the stone gutter below, and then,
seizing the rope, he twined one leg round it and began to let himself
slide.

But it was not done without noise. The twigs of ivy, as he passed over
and through them, crackled and snapped; while, as he slid down more and
more, and the projecting gutter held the rope out clear, he began to
perform evolutions like those of a leg of mutton, pendent from a
roasting-jack, the rope displaying more and more desire to untwine.

Gripping it tightly, and using his other leg as a break against further
descent, Godfrey stopped short to listen, and as he did so he suffered
from a catching of the breath, for all at once he heard a sound from
within the house, the ivy on a level with his face became illuminated,
and a candle was carried past the window of the room by which he swung.

He had a glimpse of a woman's face, and as he felt convinced by the
gleam of her eyes that she must see him, the light grew less, and was
gone.

The next minute the lad, after a few more evolutions that threatened to
make him giddy, felt his feet touch the soft earth of a flower-bed, from
which he swung himself on to the lawn, and was feeling about for the
loose rope finding that there were at least twenty yards lying about
amongst the shrubs.

These he gathered together into one spot, and, with a feeling of
exultation growing in his sense of freedom, he gave a sharp glance
through the darkness to right and left, and then, making for the
carriage-drive, whose position he fully knew now, he strode off rapidly
and silently in the direction of one of the forest paths which led
towards the little village; but of this