nd they at once concluded that his hope was to get to France by way
of Jersey and St. Malo--his only chance, all the railway-stations being
watched.

'Well, they went to the boat: he was not on board then. They went again
at half-past ten: he had not come. Two men now placed themselves under
the lamp immediately beside the gangway. Another stayed by the office
door, and one or two more up Mary Street--the straight cut to the quay.
At a quarter to eleven the mail-bags were put on board. Whilst the
attention of the idlers was directed to the mails, down Mary Street
came a man as boldly as possible. The gait was Manston's, but not the
clothes. He passed over to the shaded part of the street: heads were
turned. I suppose this warned him, for he never emerged from the shadow.
They watched and waited, but the steward did not reappear. The alarm
was raised--they searched the town high and low--no Manston. All
this morning they have been searching, but there's not a sign of him
anywhere. However, he has lost his last chance of getting across
the Channel. It is reported that he has since changed clothes with a
labourer.'

During this narration, Edward, lost in thought, had let his eyes follow
a shabby man in a smock-frock, but wearing light boots--who was stalking
down the street under a bundle of straw which overhung and concealed
his head. It was a very ordinary circumstance for a man with a bundle
of straw on his shoulders and overhanging his head, to go down the High
Street. Edward saw him cross the bridge which divided the town from the
country, place his shaggy encumbrance by the side of the road, and leave
it there.

Springrove now parted from his acquaintance, and went also in the
direction of the bridge, and some way beyond it. As far as he could see
stretched the turnpike road, and, while he was looking, he noticed a man
to leap from the hedge at a point two hundred, or two hundred and fifty
yards ahead, cross the road, and go through a wicket on the other side.
This figure seemed like that of the man who had been carrying the bundle
of straw. He looked at the straw: it still stood alone.

The subjoined facts sprang, as it were, into juxtaposition in his
brain:--

Manston had been seen wearing the clothes of a labouring man--a brown
smock-frock. So had this man, who seemed other than a labourer, on
second thoughts: and he had concealed his face by his bundle of straw
with the greatest ease and naturalness.

The