Down, very deep down. Buried in an abyss of darkness, shrouded tightly in a nameless horror that pressed on eyes and breath and hands and limbs. At last a faint sound reached Wentworth. Far away in some other world a clock struck. His numbed faculties apprehended the sound, and then forgot it when it ceased. At last he felt himself stir. He found himself staring at a glimmer of light. He could not look at it, and he could not look away from it. What was it? It had something to do with him. It grew more distinct. It was a window with a broken blind. Someone close at hand began to tremble. Wentworth sat up suddenly and found it was himself. He was alone, lying crumpled up against the wall where he had been flung down. He knew where he was. He saw the piles of tin boxes. He remembered. He leaned his leaden throbbing head against the wall, and wave after wave of sickness even unto death shuddered over him. Michael had tried to kill him. His stiff wrenched throat throbbed together with his head. For a long time he did not move. At last the clock struck again. He staggered to his feet as if he had been called, and looked with intentness at a fallen book and upset inkstand. There was a quill pen balancing itself in an absurd manner with its nib stuck in the cane bottom of an overturned chair. He took it out and laid it on the table. He saw his hat in a corner, stooped for it, missed it several times, and then got hold of it, and put it on. There was a little glass over the mantelpiece. A ghastly face with a torn collar was watching him furtively through it. He turned fiercely on the spy and found the face was his own. He turned up his coat and buttoned it. Then he went to the half-open door and looked out. His ear caught a faint sound. Otherwise the house was very still. A maid servant on her knees with her back to him was washing the white stone floor of the hall at the foot of the staircase. Another servant, also with her back to him, was watching her. "Then it is early morning," he said. And he walked out of the room, and out of the house, through the wide open doors. A fine rain was falling, but he did not notice it. He passed out through the gates and found himself in the road. He stopped unconsciously, not knowing what to do next. A fly dawdling back to the town from the station, passed him, and pulled up, as he hesitated. "Station, sir?" said the driver. "No, Barford," said Wentworth, and he got in. The fly with its faded cushions and musty atmosphere seemed a kind of refuge. He breathed more freely when he was enclosed in it. As in the garden of Eden desolation often first makes itself felt as a realisation of nakedness. We must creep away. We must hide. We have no protection, no covering. Wentworth cowered in the fly. He passed without recognising them all the old familiar landmarks, the twisting white road that branched off to Priesthope, the dew ponds, the half hidden, lonely farms. He was in a strange country.