he should do with himself for the rest of the night. It
was impossible to walk about till morning and he determined to return to
Carlton House Terrace, let himself in with his latch key and slip
upstairs to his room. If by any chance she had not retired for the night
and he chanced to meet her on the stairs or in the hall then the
confession must be made forthwith.

It was after two o'clock when he reached the house. He opened the door
with his key and closing it softly, crossed the hall and went up the
stairs. One of the hall lamps had been left burning, evidently for him:
a lamp was burning also, in the corridor. He switched on the electric
light in his room and closed the door.

Then he heaved a sigh of relief, undressed and got into bed.

All across the hall, up the stairs, and along the corridor he had been
followed by the dread of meeting her and having to enter on that
terrible explanation right away.

The craving to tell her all had been supplanted for the moment by the
dread of the act.

In the morning it would be different. He would be rested and have more
command over himself, so he fancied.

CHAPTER XIX

ESCAPE CLOSED

He was awakened by Mr. Church--one has always to give him the
prefix--pulling up the blinds. His first thought was of the task before
him.

The mind does a lot of quiet business of its own when the blinds are
down and the body is asleep, and during the night, his mind, working in
darkness, had cleared up matters, countered and cut off all sorts of
fears and objections and drawn up a definite plan.

He would tell her everything that morning. If she would not take his
word for the facts, then he would have a meeting of the whole family. He
felt absolutely certain that explaining things bit by bit and detail by
detail he could convince them of the death of Rochester and his own
existence as Jones; absolutely certain that they would not push matters
to the point of publicity. He held a trump card in the property he had
recovered from Mulhausen, were he to be exposed publicly as an impostor,
all about the Plinlimon letters, Voles and Mulhausen would come out.
Mulhausen, that very astute practitioner, would not be long in declaring
that he had been forced to return the title deeds to protect his
daughter's name. Voles would swear anything, and their case would stand
good on the proved fact that he, Jones, was a swindler. No, assuredly
the family would not press the matter to pub