Left to himself, the smile faded from Richard's face, and was succeeded by a look of the utmost dejection and disappointment. All had been going so well up to that very last moment, and now all remained to be done, just as though nothing had been done at all. The dangerous path that he had marked out for himself had to be trodden from first to last, at the very moment when he had seemed to have reached his journey's end by a safe short-cut. He knew that it was the smallest grain of suspicion, if not the mere desire to procrastinate, that had turned the scale in Trevethick's mind, and imposed this task upon him. The genuineness of the check had been _almost_ taken for granted--entire success had been missed, as it were, by a hair's-breadth. And now he was as far from it as ever. Had he been but a little more earnest, or a little more careless in his own manner, all might have been well. The obstacle that intervened between him and his desire still stood there, though only by an accident, as though, after he had fairly blown it into the air, it had resettled itself precisely in the same spot. Richard felt like some offender against the law who had been foiled in an ingenious scheme by the stupidity rather than the sagacity of him he would have defrauded; or, rather, like one who has been brought to justice by misadventure--through some blunder which Fate itself had suggested to his prosecutor. He was filled with bitterness and mortification, and also with fear. This miscarriage now imposed a necessity upon him, which he had contemplated, indeed, but never looked fairly in the face; he had always hoped it might be evaded. The only alternative that presented itself was to give up his Harry; this swept across his mind for a single instant--a black shadow that seemed to plunge his whole being in night--then left it firmly set upon its perilous purpose. He did not seek to see her before he left; he could not trust himself so far even as to turn his head and wave her a good-by, as he started from the inn door, although he felt that she was watching him from an upper window. He was afraid of the anxiety that consumed him being visible to those loving eyes. She knew upon what errand he was going, but not the dangers of it. But he spoke cheerfully to Trevethick, who stood beneath the porch with moody brow, and testily found fault with horse and harness. "The master's in a queer temper to-day, Sir," was the driver's remark, as they slowly climbed the hill out of the village. "So it seems," answered Richard, absently.