“You will branch from Baldock and take the nearest G.W. train for Bath. Then by road to Gloucester. At the village of Laverstock you will reveal to Carter the fact that you are married to Lola Bassano. You should take him to the _Red Lion_ for this purpose, and tell him as offensively as possible in order to force a quarrel, but in no circumstances are you to allow him to part company from you. Go on to Ibbley Copse. You will find an open space near where three dead trees stand, and there you will stop, take back the statement you made that you are married to Lola, and make an apology. You are carrying with you a whisky flask; you must have the dope and the whisky together at this point. After he is asleep, you will make your way to Gloucester, to 289 Hendry Street, where you will find a complete change of clothing. Here you will shave and return to town by the 2.19.” Every word, every syllable, he read over and over again, until he had mastered the details. Then, striking a match, he set fire to the paper and watched it burn. “What are the orders?” asked Ray. “The same as yours, I suppose. What did you do with yours?” “Burnt them,” said Ray. “Did he tell you where we’re going?” “We are going to take the Gloucester Road; I thought we should. That means striking across country till we reach the Bath Road. We can take a train to Bath.” “Thank goodness for that!” said Ray fervently. “I don’t feel I can walk another step.” At seven o’clock that night, two tramps turned out of a third-class carriage on Bath station. One, the younger, was limping slightly, and sat down on a station seat. “Come on, you can’t stay here,” said the other gruffly. “We’ll get a bed in the town. There’s a Salvation Army shelter somewhere in Bath.” “Wait a bit,” said the other. “I’m so cramped with sitting in that infernal carriage that I can hardly move.” They had joined the London train at Reading, and the passengers were pouring down the steps to the subway. Ray looked at them enviously. They had homes to go to, clean and comfortable beds to sleep in. The thought of it gave him a pain. And then he saw a figure and shrank back. A tall, angular man, who carried a heavy box in one hand and a bag in the other. It was his father. John Bennett went down the steps, with a casual glance at the two unsavoury tramps on the seat, never dreaming that one was the son whose future he was at that moment planning.