o the
handwriting; but I thought I could recognize the character of some of
the doctor's letters, even in the blotted impression of them. Supposing
I was right, who was Miss Giles?

Some Welsh friend of the doctor's, unknown to me? Probably enough. But
why not Alicia herself under an assumed name? Having sent her from home
to keep her out of my way, it seemed next to a certainty that her father
would take all possible measures to prevent my tracing her, and would,
therefore, as a common act of precaution, forbid her to travel under her
own name. Crickgelly, North Wales, was assuredly a very remote place to
banish her to; but then the doctor was not a man to do things by halves:
he knew the lengths to which my cunning and resolution were capable of
carrying me; and he would have been innocent indeed if he had hidden his
daughter from me in any place within reasonable distance of Barkingham.
Last, and not least important, Miss Giles sounded in my ears exactly
like an assumed name.

Was there ever any woman absolutely and literally named Miss Giles?
However I may have altered my opinion on this point since, my mind was
not in a condition at that time to admit the possible existence of any
such individual as a maiden Giles. Before, therefore, I had put the
precious blotting-paper into my pocket, I had satisfied myself that
my first duty, under all the circumstances, was to shape my flight
immediately to Crickgelly. I could be certain of nothing--not even
of identifying the doctor's handwriting by the impression on the
blotting-paper. But provided I kept clear of Barkingham, it was all
the same to me what part of the United Kingdom I went to; and, in
the absence of any actual clew to her place of residence, there was
consolation and encouragement even in following an imaginary trace.
My spirits rose to their natural height as I struck into the highroad
again, and beheld across the level plain the smoke, chimneys, and church
spires of a large manufacturing town. There I saw the welcome promise
of a coach--the happy chance of making my journey to Crickgelly easy and
rapid from the very outset.

On my way to the town, I was reminded by the staring of all the people I
passed on the road, of one important consideration which I had hitherto
most unaccountably overlooked--the necessity of making some radical
change in my personal appearance.

I had no cause to dread the Bow Street runners, for not one of them
had seen me; but