There were three books in the room--Jeremy Taylor's 'Holy Living and
Dying,' a volume of the Quiver, and a little gilded book on wildflowers.
He read in vain. He lay and listened to the uproar of his thoughts on
which an occasional sound--the droning of a fly, the cry of a milkman,
the noise of a passing van--obtruded from the workaday world. The pale
gold sunlight edged softly over the bed. He ate up everything on his
tray. He even, on the shoals of nightmare, dreamed awhile. But by and
by as the hours wheeled slowly on he grew less calm, less strenuously
resolved on lying there inactive. Every sparrow that twittered cried
reveille through his brain. He longed with an ardour strange to his
temperament to be up and doing.

What if his misfortune was, as he had in the excitement of the moment
suggested to Sheila, only a morbid delusion of mind; shared too in part
by sheer force of his absurd confession? Even if he was going mad, who
knows how peaceful a release that might not be? Could his shrewd old
vicar have implicitly believed in him if the change were as complete
as he supposed it? He flung off the bedclothes and locked the door.
He dressed himself, noticing, he fancied, with a deadly revulsion
of feeling, that his coat was a little too short in the sleeves, his
waistcoat too loose. In the midst of his dressing came Sheila bringing
his luncheon. 'I'm sorry,' he called out, stooping quickly beside the
bed, 'I can't talk now. Please put the tray down.'

About half an hour afterwards he heard the outer door close, and peeping
from behind the curtains saw his wife go out. All was drowsily quiet in
the house. He devoured his lunch like a schoolboy. That finished to the
last crumb, without a moment's delay he covered his face with a towel,
locked the door behind him, put the key in his pocket, and ran lightly
downstairs. He stuffed the towel into an ulster pocket, put on a soft,
wide-brimmed hat, and noiselessly let himself out. Then he turned
with an almost hysterical delight and ran--ran like the wind, without
pausing, without thinking, straight on, up one turning, down another,
until he reached a broad open common, thickly wooded, sprinkled with
gorse and hazel and may, and faintly purple with fading heather. There
he flung himself down in the beautiful sunlight, among the yellowing
bracken, to recover his breath.

He lay there for many minutes, thinking almost with composure. Flight,
it seemed, had for the moment