ill raised its
snow-bedabbled, darkling woods against the sky. John looked all about
him, drinking the clear air like wine; then, his eyes returned to the
cabman's face as he sat, not ungleefully, awaiting John's communication,
with the air of one looking to be tipped.

The features of that face were hard to read, drink had so swollen them,
drink had so painted them, in tints that varied from brick-red to
mulberry. The small grey eyes blinked, the lips moved, with greed; greed
was the ruling passion; and though there was some good-nature, some
genuine kindliness, a true human touch, in the old toper, his greed was
now so set afire by hope, that all other traits of character lay
dormant. He sat there a monument of gluttonous desire.

John's heart slowly fell. He had opened his lips, but he stood there and
uttered nought. He sounded the well of his courage, and it was dry. He
groped in his treasury of words, and it was vacant. A devil of dumbness
had him by the throat; a devil of terror babbled in his ears; and
suddenly, without a word uttered, with no conscious purpose formed in
his will, John whipped about, tumbled over the roadside wall, and began
running for his life across the fallows.

He had not gone far, he was not past the midst of the first field, when
his whole brain thundered within him, "Fool! You have your watch!" The
shock stopped him and he faced once more towards the cab. The driver was
leaning over the wall, brandishing his whip, his face empurpled, roaring
like a bull. And John saw (or thought) that he had lost the chance. No
watch would pacify the man's resentment now; he would cry for vengeance
also. John would be under the eye of the police; his tale would be
unfolded, his secret plumbed, his destiny would close on him at last,
and for ever.

He uttered a deep sigh; and just as the cabman, taking heart of grace,
was beginning at last to scale the wall, his defaulting customer fell
again to running and disappeared into the farther fields.

CHAPTER VIII

SINGULAR INSTANCE OF THE UTILITY OF PASS-KEYS

Where he ran at first, John never very clearly knew; nor yet how long a
time elapsed ere he found himself in the by-road near the lodge of
Ravelston, propped against the wall, his lungs heaving like bellows, his
legs leaden-heavy, his mind possessed by one sole desire--to lie down
and be unseen. He remembered the thick coverts round the quarry-hole
pond, an untrodden corner of the world whe