‘I swerved, dodged, doubled on my tracks, but he was always at me. Now and again, for lack of breath, I halted, and he halted with me. And then, when I had got my wind, I would start running again, in the insane hope of escaping him. We came, by what twisting and turning course I know not, to the great avenue, and as I stood there in an agony of panting I had a dazed vision of the distant Hall. Really I had quite forgotten I was staying at the Duke of Hertfordshire’s. But Braxton hadn’t forgotten. He planted himself in front of me. He stood between me and the house. ‘Faint though I was, I could almost have laughed. Good heavens! was THAT all he wanted: that I shouldn’t go back there? Did he suppose I wanted to go back there--with HIM? Was I the Duke’s prisoner on parole? What was there to prevent me from just walking off to the railway station? I turned to do so. ‘He accompanied me on my way. I thought that when once I had passed through the lodge gates he might vanish, satisfied. But no, he didn’t vanish. It was as though he suspected that if he let me out of his sight I should sneak back to the house. He arrived with me, this quiet companion of mine, at the little railway station. Evidently he meant to see me off. I learned from an elderly and solitary porter that the next train to London was the 4.3. ‘Well, Braxton saw me off by the 4.3. I reflected, as I stepped up into an empty compartment, that it wasn’t yet twenty-four hours ago since I, or some one like me, had alighted at that station. ‘The guard blew his whistle; the engine shrieked, and the train jolted forward and away; but I did not lean out of the window to see the last of my attentive friend. ‘Really not twenty-four hours ago? Not twenty-four years?’