position was hopeless till
there should be light enough to show him the Crystal Palace.  Once
arrived there, he could easily make his way back to London, for in days
gone by he had often driven down in his tandem from Westminster, once or
twice with Claudia at his side.

The night was dark, starless, and intensely cold.  But he heeded not
fatigue, for his mind was full of the gravest reflections.  That the
woman Mortimer, the mysterious ward of the Meldrums, had laid a very
clever plot, into which he had fallen, was plainly apparent.  But he had
refused her demands, and she was now, of course, his most bitter enemy.
That she would seek vengeance he had no doubt, for she had already shown
herself to be a woman not to be thwarted.

And what was worse than all--she knew his secret.

Through the ill-lit suburban roads he wandered on and on, reflecting
bitterly that with this woman as his enemy there only remained for him
suicide, if he wished to avoid arrest and a criminal's trial.  He came
at last to a railway line running on a low embankment, through market
gardens, and it occurred to him to climb up there and wait in patience
for the approach of a train.  All this time Dudley Chisholm was not in
the least distraught; and yet of all his wishes none was so powerful as
the wish to end his life.

But Claudia's beautiful face arose before him.  Her dear eyes, with that
familiar expression of tenderness, a little sad, but sweet with a
love-look not to be mistaken, seemed to gaze upon him just as they had
done during that blissful hour before midnight, when he had held her in
his arms and breathed into her ear the declaration of his love.

Ah, how passionately he loved her!

No, he could not take farewell of life without once again beholding her!
He descended the embankment and walked along what seemed interminable
miles of streets, until he met at last a bricklayer on his way to work,
carrying his tin tea-bottle in his hand.  This man proved communicative,
and informed him that he was at Rushey Green, on the main road w