slowly until he
reached his room. But once within the door he acted with speed and
resolution. First he turned the key in the lock and softly shot the
bolt, then crossed the room quickly, his heart beating rapidly. He was
not strong and his nerves already were warning him, but they did not
fail him. He peered out of the window upon the terrace. It was not yet
dark and there was a nurse below standing beside a man in a wheel chair.
He could not go now for they would see him and surely give the alarm,
and so he waited, going back to the door and listening for the sound of
approaching male footsteps. As yet no sound. He peered down upon the
head of the luckless nurse, mutely imprecating. The moments were
precious. Would they never go in? It was past the hour for loitering on
the terrace. For a moment the idiotic notion came to him to go out into
the corridor and call the attention of the nurse in charge of the floor
to the infraction of rules, but he turned again to the window. The nurse
was moving now, slowly pushing the wheel chair toward the door. It was
barely a hundred feet away, but to Renwick it seemed an eternity before
the pair vanished within. Then taking off his slippers he put them in
the pocket of his wrapper, and rolling it into a bundle, dropped it
noiselessly upon the terrace below. His nerves quivered as he sat
astride the window-sill but he set his jaw and lowered himself from the
window, catching the iron gutter-pipe with bare fingers and toes. The
spout seemed to creak horribly, and for a moment he thought that it was
swaying outward with him. But the sensation was born of his own
weakness. The pipe held and slowly he descended, reaching the ground,
his knuckles bruised and torn, but so far, safe.

He paused for a moment to slip into his wrapper and then crossed the
terrace quietly, reached the lawn and the shelter of the bushes below.

CHAPTER XIX

DISGUISE

Long ago he had planned the direction in which he should go when the
time came for him to escape. And so without pausing to look behind him
he hurried down the hill in the shelter of the hedge until he reached
its end. A hundred yards away was a hillock. By going forward in a line
which he had already marked he would have the partial protection of
rocks and bushes. He paused just a moment to be sure that no one was
coming after him. All was as before and the dark group of buildings, his
home for nearly two months, loomed in silent digni