tained swag,
up Werter Road towards Oxford Road. When they had turned the corner they
felt very much relieved.

They had escaped.

It was their second attempt. The first, made in daylight, had completely
failed. Their cab had been followed to Paddington Station by three other
cabs containing the representatives and the cameras of three Sunday
newspapers. A journalist had deliberately accompanied Priam to the
booking office, had heard him ask for two seconds to Weymouth, and had
bought a second to Weymouth himself. They had gone to Weymouth, but as
within two hours of their arrival Weymouth had become even more
impossible than Werter Road, they had ignominiously but wisely come
back.

Werter Road had developed into the most celebrated thoroughfare in
London. Its photograph had appeared in scores of newspapers, with a
cross marking the abode of Priam and Alice. It was beset and infested by
journalists of several nationalities from morn till night. Cameras were
as common in it as lamp-posts. And a famous descriptive reporter of the
_Sunday News_ had got lodgings, at a high figure, exactly opposite No.
29. Priam and Alice could do nothing without publicity. And if it would
be an exaggeration to assert, that evening papers appeared with
Stop-press News: "5.40. Mrs. Leek went out shopping," the exaggeration
would not be very extravagant. For a fortnight Priam had not been beyond
the door during daylight. It was Alice who, alarmed by Priam's pallid
cheeks and tightened nerves, had devised the plan of flight before the
early summer dawn.

They reached East Putney Station, of which the gates were closed, the
first workman's train being not yet due. And there they stood. Not
another human being was abroad. Only the clock of St. Bude's was
faithfully awakening every soul within a radius of two hundred yards
each quarter of an hour. Then a porter came and opened the gate--it was
still exceedingly early--and Priam booked for Waterloo in triumph.

"Oh," cried Alice, as they mounted the stairs, "I quite forgot to draw
up the blinds at the front of the house." And she stopped on the stairs.

"What did you want to draw up the blinds for?"

"If they're down everybody will know instantly that we've gone. Whereas
if I--"

She began to descend the stairs.

"Alice!" he said sharply, in a strange voice. The muscles of his white
face were drawn.

"What?"

"D--n the blinds. Come along, or upon my soul I'll kill you."

She reali