Roland Sefton did not sleep that night. As the time drew near for Felicita to act upon his message to her, he grew more desponding of her response to it; yet he could not give up the feeble hope still flickering in his heart. If she did not come he would be a hopeless outcast indeed; yet if she came, what succor could she bring to him? He had not once cherished the idea that Mr. Clifford would forbear to prosecute him; yet he knew well that if he could be propitiated, the other men and women who had claims upon him would be easily satisfied and appeased. But how many things might have happened during the long six months, which had seemed almost an eternity to him. It was not impossible that Mr. Clifford might be dead. If so, and if a path was thus open to him to re-enter life, how different should his career be in the future! How warily would he walk; with what earnest penitence and thorough uprightness would he order all his ways! He would be what he had only seemed to be hitherto: a man following Christ, as his forefathers had done. He was staying at a quiet inn in the village, and as soon as daybreak came he started down the road along which Felicita must come, and waited at the entrance of the valley, four miles from the little village. The road was bad, for the heavy rains had washed much of it away, and it had been roughly repaired by fir-trees laid along the broken edges; but it was not impassable, and a one-horse carriage could run along it safely. The rain had passed away, and the sun was shining. The high mountains and the great rocks were clear from base to summit. If she came to-day there was a splendid scene prepared for her eyes. Hour after hour passed by, the short autumnal day faded into the dusk, and the dusk slowly deepened into the blackness of night. Still he waited, late on into the night, till the monastery bells chimed for the last time; but there was no sign of her coming. The next day passed as that had done. Felicita, then, had deserted him! He felt so sure of Phebe that he never doubted that she had not received his message. He had left only one thread of communication between himself and home--a slender thread--and Felicita had broken it. There was now no hope for him, no chance of learning what had befallen all his dear ones, unless he ran the risk of discovery, and ventured back to England. But for Felicita and his children, he said to himself, it would be better to go back, and pay the utmost penalty he owed to the broken laws of his country. No hardships could be greater than those he had already endured; no separation from companionship could be more complete. The hard labor he would be doomed to perform would be a relief. His conscience might smite him less sharply and less ceaselessly if he was suffering the due punishment for his sin, in the society of his fellow-criminals. Dartmoor Prison would be better for him than his miserable and degrading freedom.