"There's nothing left for me but to turn housebreaker," he said to himself; "and the first house I'll try my hand upon shall be Valentine Hawkehurst's." The idea of violence in such a creature was the idea of a madman. Weapon he had none, nor the physical strength that would have enabled him to grapple with a boy of twelve years old. Half intoxicated with the spirits he had consumed on his long tramp, half delirious with fever, he had a vague notion that he could make an entrance into some ill-defended house under cover of night, and steal something that should procure him food and shelter. And let the house be Valentine Hawkehurst's, the man who had baffled his plans and crushed him! If blood must be shed, let the blood be his! Never was man better primed for murder than the man who tramped across Wimbledon Common at eleven o'clock this night, with the snow drifting against his face, and his limbs shaken every now and then by an ague-fit. Happily for the interests of society, his hand lacked the power to execute that iniquity which his heart willed. He reached a little wayside inn near the Robin Hood gate of Richmond Park, just as the shutters were being closed, and asked a man if any one of the name of Hawkehurst lived in that neighbourhood. "What do _you_ want with Mr. Hawkehurst?" asked the man, contemptuously. "I've got a letter for him." "Have you? A begging letter, I should think, from the look of you." "No; it's a business letter. You'd better show me where he lives, if he's a customer of yours. The business is particular." "Is it? You're a queer kind of messenger to trust with particular business. Mr. Hawkehurst's house is the third you come to on the opposite side of the way. But I don't suppose you'll find anybody up as late as this. Their lights are out by eleven, in a general way." The third house on the opposite side of the road was half a mile distant from the little run. Lights shone bright in the lower windows as the tramp dragged his tired limbs to the stout oaken gate. The gate was fastened only by a latch, and offered no resistance to the intruder. He crept with stealthy footsteps along the smooth gravel walk, sheltered by dark laurels, on which the light flashed cheerily from those bright windows. Sounds of laughter and of music pealed out upon the wintry air. Shadows flitted across the blinds of the broad bay windows. Philip Sheldon crept into a sheltered nook beside the rustic porch, and sank down exhausted in the shadow of the laurels. He sat there in a kind of stupor. He had lost the power of thought, somehow, on that dreary journey. It seemed almost as if he had left some portion of his being out yonder in the cold and darkness. He had difficulty in remembering why he had come to this place, and what that deed was which he meant to do.