He had made all his plans. He had decided that on the day of escape he would walk over to Salis Coombe station, a matter of some two miles; there he would be joined by Annie, whose aunt lived near there, and to whom she could go on a visit the evening before. They would catch the slow four o'clock train to Drymouth and then meet the express that reached London at midnight. He would go to an Oxford friend who lived in St. John's Wood, and he and Annie would be married as soon as possible. Beyond everything else he wanted this marriage to take place quickly; once that was done he was Annie's protector, so long as she should need him. She should be free as she pleased, but she would have some one to whom she might go, some one who could legally provide for her and would see that she came to no harm. The thing that he feared most was lest any ill should come to her through the fact of his caring for her; he felt that he could let her go for ever the very day after his marriage, so that he knew that she would never come to harm. A certain defiant courage in her, mingled with her ignorance and simplicity, made his protection of her the first thing in his life. As to living, his Oxford friend was concerned with various literary projects, having a little money of his own, and much self-confidence and ambition. He and Falk had already, at Oxford, edited a little paper together, and Falk had been promised some reader's work in connection with one of the younger publishing houses. In after years he looked back in amazement that he should have ventured on the great London attack with so slender a supply of ammunition--but now, looking forward in Polchester, that question of future livelihood seemed the very smallest of his problems. Perhaps, deepest of all, something fiercely democratic in him longed for the moment when he might make his public proclamation of his defiance of class. He meant to set off, simply as he was; they could send his things after him. If he indulged in any pictures of the future, he did, perhaps, see himself returning to Polchester in a year's time or so, as the editor of the most remarkable of London's new periodicals, received by his father with enthusiasm, and even Annie admitted into the family with approval. Of course, they could not return here to live...it would be only a visit.... At that sudden vision of Annie and his father face to face, that vision faded; no, this was the end of the old life. He must face that, set his shoulders square to it, steel his heart to it....