“Your lordship must excuse me. This suspense--it hath driven me half mad. I am just a caged rat, flying the instant the spring is raised. Mistress Pamela, and my prompt, affectionate Vergniaud! Their disinterested consideration for me--and yours, my lord, yours--they touch me to the quick. I have such friends--Madame Simon-Candeille, possibly, among the number. But I am at the last stage of anxiety and agitation. I have no thought for the moment but to escape, and alone. I beg your lordship to forgive my apparent discourtesy, and to let me pass. God knows, it may be too late even now.” The other, looking very much surprised and offended, bowed and drew away. “As your lordship pleases,” said he. And at that, Ned, without another word, his face as stiff as a mask, staggered past him, hurried out into the corridor, sped down it, and made unaccosted for the street. CHAPTER XVIII. Snow, soft, dazzling, bewildering, was again falling in the streets as Ned, a spectre of desperation, hurried along them. The city was all one strung movement of flakes--cloud materialising, phantoms blocking the widest and the least avenues of hope. The soulless persistency of them numbed his heart, blinded his eyes. He stumbled as he went, feeling like one who, in a nightmare, frantically strives forward without advancing. Pamela, and Théroigne, and Nicette! The one on the way to her dressmaker’s; the one buried--naked, and buried alive; the third----! He moaned as he struggled onward. People passing him looked back with eyes askew in butting heads, and grimaced, and went on their way with pharisaic self-congratulations. At length, uttering a breathing sigh of relief, he stood before the door of his lodgings, paused a moment, mounted the steps, and entered. Instantly he knew, before a word had been spoken, that he was come upon the _something_, the _real presence_ of the dread that had haunted him so long. It was in the atmosphere--behind him, overhead, to one side or the other--never confronting him--a ghost, sibilant with babble, diabolic with tickling laughter. He went up the stairs, swiftly, panic-stricken, and so, softly, into his sitting-room. It was quiet as death; yet a bodiless rustle, he could have thought, preceded him as he passed into the room beyond. All there was neat, formal, accustomed. Only a little heap of girl’s clothes lay on the bed--a neatly disposed small pile of stuffs and linen, with a pair of buckled shoes at the top.