Mayne scratched his grizzled head in pained perplexity. To his slow brain the incident of a wealthy nobleman fleeing in the dead of night from a creditor presented a startling incongruity, but gradually it recurred to him that he had heard that the new Duke had been "a bit wild" when in the army; and, after all, his reluctance to be recognized by the Colonel till he had had time to liquidate the debt seemed but natural. "Yes, it can be done, your Grace," replied the keeper, softly opening the lattice casement. "The lean-to roof of the woodshed reaches right up here, and there’s a pile of faggots against the shed. You can get down easy enough, and as it’s the back of the house, if you are careful, he won’t know anything about it. But I’ll come, too, and show your Grace the way out of the wood." "On no account, Mayne," said Beaumanoir quickly. "You’ll be much more useful here. I’ll find my way out of the wood all right, but you must go back to the kitchen and tell Colonel Walcot that I am going to bed. It’s only a white lie, and here’s a five-pound note on account of it. Stay with him as long as you can—half an hour at least—and then go to bed yourself." "Very well, your Grace; I don’t like it, but I’ll do it." "And see here, Mayne: there’s one thing more. In the morning, or whenever Colonel Walcot discovers that I have gone away, tell him from me why I went, and that I intend to repay him all I owe him. _All I owe him_, don’t forget that." Directly he was alone Beaumanoir left himself no time for weighing the chances, but took the risk. Squeezing through the window, he climbed down the sloping roof of the woodshed and thence by way of the faggot-pile to the ground. He was well aware that every step, as he groped his way across the clearing into the thicket, might be his last, for doubtless he had been traced to the cottage and the whole pack were somewhere about. His only hope lay in the probability that they were in front of the house, where they could hold themselves ready to obey signals from the kitchen window or a summons from the door. It might have been that this was the case, for Beaumanoir reached the trees without interference, and at once shaped a course for the edge of the wood. His progress was difficult by reason of the darkness and the density of the undergrowth, but fortune favored him in so far that he presently hit upon a public foot-path, and so came eventually to a stile giving on a high road. At the next cross-ways was a sign-post, which he read by the light of a wax match, and thence onward limped steadily forward for Prior’s Tarrant, with growing confidence that he had eluded pursuit.