Doubledick had gone only a short distance, however, along the path, when he caught sight of a figure coming in the other direction. Instantly he stepped on to the grass on the left, and picked his way as carefully as he could in the darkness over the rough ground and among the furze bushes. He dared not turn his head. The merest glimpse of a pedestrian was enough to set him quaking; nor had he the courage now to make his way back to the path. Having met one person he might meet another. In his state of panic-fear he saw in every dark bush a man lying in wait for him, and the thought of tramping for miles over this desolate moor filled him with terror. There was another way to Truro, by the high-road running past the Towers to the cross-road from Newquay. In a few minutes, therefore, he turned again to the left, and struck across the uneven ground towards a point about midway between the Dower House and the Towers. Dark as the night was, he would at least see the road and fare more easily upon it. Passers were rare at this hour, and he hoped, if he should chance to meet any one, to catch sight of him in time to slip aside on to the dark moorland. As he came to the road, he threw a glance to the left, where the ruins of the Dower House were smouldering, sparks now and then flying southward on the wind. The sight awoke no reflections, regrets, remorse, in his soul. He was obsessed by anxiety for his own safety. Dick, having accompanied Mr. Carlyon to the Parsonage, remained there for an hour or two, talking over the strange events of the day, and then started homeward along the path that would bring him to the bridge. He noticed a man, bowed beneath a load, turn aside on to the moor, and chuckled at the thought that perhaps the smugglers had made their run after all, and this was one of the tub-carriers conveying his precious load to an expectant farmer. Well, it was no business of his. He went on until he came to the road, turned to the right, sniffing as the wind brought pungent smoke to his nostrils, and when he came opposite to the Dower House, which the spectators had now deserted, halted for a few moments to contemplate the empty shell, momentarily lit up as a gust stirred the embers. It was little more than three months since John Trevanion entered into possession. How swiftly retribution had overtaken him for the ill that he had done! In the short space of an hour his prosperity had vanished like the smoke from his burning house, and he was gone to pay the penalty, Dick could not doubt, for the fraud and trickery of years.