"Out of my way? Not at all," he answered briskly. "And it is no trouble. Come along, my friend." I dared say no more, nor show farther reluctance; and so, with feet like lead and eyes roving furtively for a way of escape, I turned and went with him. Nay, it was not my feet only that were weighted; the letter, and my consciousness of it, lay so heavy on my mind that it was like lead in the pocket. I was indeed in a strait now! And in one so difficult I could discern no way out of it; for though I could in part, and in part only, command my countenance, I failed absolutely to command my thoughts, which did nothing but revolve tumultuously about the words, "What am I to do? What am I to do?" words that seemed written in red letters on my brain. Only one thing was clear to me in the confusion, and that was the urgent necessity I lay under of hiding my errand, the disclosure of which must carry with it the disclosure of the place whence I came and the company I had been keeping. With time to think and coolness to distinguish I should doubtless have seen the possibility of announcing my errand to the Duke, yet laying it on Ferguson's shoulders; but pushed for time and unable at a pinch to weigh all the issues, I could form no determination, much less one leading to so daring a step. After one denial, that is. In the meantime we moved on; and at first my companion seemed to be unconscious of my sluggish pace and my perturbation. But presently I felt rather than saw that from minute to minute he glanced at me askance, and that after each of these inspections he laughed silently. The knowledge that I lay under this observation immeasurably increased my embarrassment. I could no longer put a fair face on the matter, but every time he looked at me looked away guiltily, unable to support his eyes. This presently grew so insupportable that to escape from my embarrassment I coughed and affected to choke. "You have a cold, I am afraid," he said, scarcely concealing the sneer in his tone. "And yet you look warm. You must have walked fast, my friend?" I muttered that I had. "To overtake me, perhaps! It was good of you," he said in the same tone of secret badinage. "But we are here. What part of the Fields do you want? Whitecross Street?" "No," I muttered. "Then it must be Baxter's Rents." "No." "Bunhill Row?" "No." "No? Well, there is not much else here," he said; and he shrugged his shoulders, "except the Fields and the burial-ground. Your business does not lie with the latter, I suppose?" "No," I said faintly. And we stood.