The man promised obsequiously, and Mr. Rutledge left the room. Victor only waited to hear his horse's hoofs die away down the street, and to see the bar-keeper's attention fully engaged with a group of jovial mechanics just entering for their noon-day drink, to leave his place of concealment, and possessing himself hastily of the note, opened it carefully, and abstracting the contents, substituted a business circular which he had in his pocket, sealed up the envelope again, threw it on the table, and left the room by a side-door. He had walked some distance down the street before he ventured to read the letter, which proved, of course, to be from Dr. Hugh, apologizing for the delay, but saying that it would be impossible for him to be at Brandon before four o'clock. At that hour he should hope to find Mr. Viennet at the Shades, as first named, etc. "The Shades" was the last place where he desired to see him now, so he determined to walk forward on the road to Rutledge, and meet him on the way. It was a hot and dusty road, upon which the afternoon sun shone down unmercifully, but the heat and the dust were unheeded and indifferent to the over-wrought and exasperated traveller. The exercise and the fatigue of walking were in some measure a relief to his strained nerves, and without stopping to reflect, he hurried fiercely on, till eight miles of the twelve had been accomplished. Something familiar in the road had drawn his attention to his locality, and warned him of his nearness to Rutledge. It had been so lonely and monotonous a road before that, his attention had not been attracted to it; he had passed the last farmhouse three or four miles back, and only paused now, struck by the familiarity of the Hemlock Hollow road, leading off at the left. It was now only four miles to the village, and he stopped, resolved to await Dr. Hugh here. It was no balm to his vexed and angry mood, to remember how near he was to what was at once dearest and most unattainable to him. It was no soother to his wounded pride, to feel that he was skulking like a thief around the place where for weeks he had been entertained as a guest; and as hour after hour dragged on, and no one approached down the lonely road, his impatience grew into a kind of frenzy, and before the glaring sun had sunk behind the woods, and the thick, dull twilight had crept slowly over the gloomy hollow, from an angry and exasperated, he had become a revengeful and desperate man.