He rose, plodded home, and stole into the courtyard, where, searching in an outhouse, he found an endurable couch on a heap of straw. On this he spread his coat like a blanket, crawling under it, and, with a calmness born of perfect health and perfect nerves, was soon asleep. When dawn broke it found him wakeful. He had not rested well, for his burnt wrist was very sore, and the straw seemed to find it out and to prick the wound, no matter how he might dispose his hand. He propped himself against the wall by the open outhouse-window, whence he could see the back door of Balnillo and watch for the moment of its first opening. It would be neck or nothing then, for he must enter boldly, trusting to hit on a lucky moment. At last the growing light began to define details of the house, tracing them out on its great mass with an invisible pencil, and he thought he heard a movement within. The stable-clock struck six, and high above he could see the sun touching the slates and the stone angles of the chimney-stacks with the first fresh ethereal beam of a pure October morning. He inhaled its breath lovingly, and with it there fell from him the heaviness of his uneasy night. All was well, he told himself. His sensuous joy in the world, his love of life and its hazards and energies came back upon him, strong, clean, and ecstatic, and the sounds of a bolt withdrawn made him rise to his feet. A maidservant came out carrying a lantern, whose beam burned with feeble pretentiousness in the coming sunlight. She set it down by the threshold and went past his retreat to the stable. No doubt she was going to call the men. When she had gone by he slipped out, and in a dozen paces was inside the house. Another minute and he was in his room. He looked with some amusement at the rough effigy of himself which he had made in the bed overnight, and when he had flung the cushion back to its place he got out of his clothes and lay down, sinking into the cool luxury of the sheets with a sigh of pleasure. But he had no desire to sleep, and when a servant came to wake him half an hour later he was ready to get up. He rose, dressed, wrote out the detailed description of his night's discoveries, and put the document in his pocket to await its chance of transmission. A message was brought to him from Lord Balnillo as he left his room, which begged his guest to excuse his company at breakfast. He had been long astir, and busy with his correspondence; at eleven o'clock he would be ready for his sitting, if that were agreeable to Mr. Flemington. As Mr. Flemington realized how easily he might have met the judge as he ran through the shuttered passage, his belief in the luck that had used him so scurvily last night returned.