In a moment more he was gone, feeling that he had done his duty like a man, and that it had not been so hard after all. He was glad it was done, however, and he felt that he could face the vicar with a bold front at their next meeting. He went quickly down the path and crossed the road to his own gate with a light step. As he entered the park he was not aware of a wretched-looking tramp who slouched along the quickset hedge and watched his retreating figure far up the avenue, till he was out of sight among the leafless trees. If Stamboul had been with the squire the tramp would certainly not have passed unnoticed; but for some days the roads had been so muddy that Stamboul had been left behind when Mr. Juxon made his visits to the cottage, lest the great hound should track the mud into the spotless precincts of the passage. The tramp stood still and looked after the squire so long as he could see him, and then slunk off across the wet meadows, where the standing water was now skimmed with ice. Walter Goddard had spent the day in watching for the squire and he had seen him at last. He had seen him go down the road with the vicar till they were both out of sight, and he had seen him come back and enter the cottage. This proceeding, he argued, betrayed that the squire did not wish to be seen going into Mary's house by the vicar. The tortuous intelligences of bad men easily impute to others courses which they themselves would naturally pursue. Three words on the previous evening had sufficed to rouse the convict's jealousy. What he saw to-day confirmed his suspicions. The gentleman in knickerbockers could be no other than the squire himself, of course. He was evidently in the habit of visiting Mary Goddard and he did not wish his visits to be observed by the clergyman, who was of course the vicar or rector of the parish. That proved conclusively in the fugitive's mind that there was something wrong. He ground his teeth together and said to himself that it would be worth while to run some risk in order to stop that little game, as he expressed it. He had, as he himself had confessed to his wife, murdered one man in escaping; a man, he reflected, could only hang once, and if he had not been taken in the streets of London he was not likely to be caught in the high street of Billingsfield, Essex. It would be a great satisfaction to knock the squire on the head before he went any farther. Moreover he had found a wonderfully safe retreat in the disused vault at the back of the church. He discovered loose stones inside the place which he could pile up against the low hole which served for an entrance. Probably no one knew that there was any entrance at all--the very existence of the vault was most likely forgotten. It was not a cheerful place, but Goddard's nerves were excited to a pitch far beyond the reach of supernatural fears. Whatever he might be condemned to feel in the future, his conscience troubled him very little in the present. The vault