t I felt rather like a culprit in the way in
which I abandoned my chambers. Feeling assured that the dwarf, having
once set himself as a spy upon my actions, would stop at no means of
tracing me out of town, I determined to leave such an account of myself
behind as should effectually put him upon a false scent. I accordingly
informed the people of the house that I was going into Buckinghamshire
for two days; and, as that was nearly the opposite direction to the
route I was really about to take--for my destination lay among the
sylvan valleys of Kent--I hoped to baffle him at the start. My
arrangements were speedily completed, and, having made a hasty
inspection of the street before I ventured out, I sprang into a
cabriolet, and drove off.

The imperceptible degrees by which men, in the pursuit of passionate
ends, suffer themselves to fall into deceptions, at which their reason
and their probity would revolt in calmer moments, might suggest a useful
train of reflections at this point of my narrative. But the moral is
obvious enough, without requiring to be formally pointed. I shall only
remark, that my ruminations in the post-chaise that carried me to Astraea
ran chiefly upon the self-humiliation I felt in contemplating the
mystery in which I had become entangled step by step, and the sort of
guiltiness which my studious evasion of the dwarf seemed to argue to my
own mind. Men who act openly never have any reason to entertain a fear
of others, and may look the world boldly in the face. It is only men
that commit themselves to actions which will not bear the light who
resort to subterfuges and concealments, and are harrowed by
apprehensions. My dilemma was a singular one. There was nothing I had
done which I had the slightest reason to hide or feel alarm about; yet I
was taking as cautious measures to avoid publicity as if I were flying
from justice, and was haunted all the time by a thrill of terror which I
could not assign to any intelligible cause.

In the dusk of the evening, I had the profound happiness of reaching my
destination, and all inquietude was lulled into oblivion by the music of
those tones which always went direct to my heart. The past and the
future were equally absorbed in the luxury of Astraea's society, and I
felt that if I needed an excuse for the strange circumstances in which I
was placed, I had an ample one in the devotion of such a woman. The very
danger--if danger it was, with which I was as ye