g it better this, the first night of his return, not to
rest till he had gone to his bed.

"Why should I be back soon?" he said, turning upon her. But then he
remembered that she had been one of those who were true to him, and
he took her hand and was gracious to her. "I will be back soon, Mrs.
Bunce, and you need fear nothing. But recollect how little I have
had of liberty lately. I have not even had a walk for six weeks.
You cannot wonder that I should wish to roam about a little."
Nevertheless she would have preferred that he should not have gone
out all alone on that night.

He had taken off the black morning coat which he had worn during the
trial, and had put on that very grey garment by which it had been
sought to identify him with the murderer. So clad he crossed Regent
Street into Hanover Square, and from thence went a short way down
Bond Street, and by Bruton Street into Berkeley Square. He took
exactly the reverse of the route by which he had returned home from
the club on the night of the murder. Every now and then he trembled
as he passed some figure which might be that of a man who would
recognise him. But he walked fast, and went on till he came to
the spot at which the steps descend from the street into the
passage,--the very spot at which the murder had been committed. He
looked down it with an awful dread, and stood there as though he were
fascinated, thinking of all the details which he had heard throughout
the trial. Then he looked around him, and listened whether there were
any step approaching through the passage. Hearing none and seeing no
one he at last descended, and for the first time in his life passed
through that way into Bolton Row. Here it was that the wretch of whom
he had now heard so much had waited for his enemy,--the wretch for
whom during the last six weeks he had been mistaken. Heavens!--that
men who had known him should have believed him to have done such a
deed as that! He remembered well having shown the life-preserver to
Erle and Fitzgibbon at the door of the club; and it had been thought
that after having so shown it he had used it for the purpose to which
in his joke he had alluded! Were men so blind, so ignorant of nature,
so little capable of discerning the truth as this? Then he went on
till he came to the end of Clarges Street, and looked up the mews
opposite to it,--the mews from which the man had been seen to hurry.
The place was altogether unknown to him. He had never