We wanted passionately to get away from each other and indulge ourselves privately in a very orgie of gapes and stretchings. And yet, we stuck there, idiotically, making excuses and little polite recommendations for the others to retire, until Frank with a drastic quality of determination that he sometimes showed, took command. "Go on, mater," he said; "you go to bed." And he went up to her, kissed her in the mechanical way of most grown-up sons, and gently urged her in the direction of the stairs. She submitted, still with faint protestations of apology. Olive followed, and with a last feint of hospitality, her father brought up the tail of the procession. "Coming for a drink?" Frank asked me with a jerk of his head towards the extemporised buffet. "Well, no, thanks. I think not," I said, seeking the relief afforded by the women's absence; although, now, that I could indulge my desire without restraint, the longing to gape had surprisingly vanished. "Going to bed?" Jervaise suggested. "Yes. Bed's the best place, just now," I lied. "Right oh! Good-night, old chap," Ronnie said effusively. I pretended to be going upstairs and they did not wait for me to disappear. As soon as they had left the Hall, I sneaked down again, recovered from the cloak-room the light overcoat I had worn on our expedition to the Farm--I have no idea to whom that overcoat belonged--borrowed a cap, and let myself out stealthily by the front door. As I quietly shut the door behind me, a delicious whiff of night-stock drifted by me, as if it had waited there for all those long hours seeking entrance to the stale, dry air of the Hall. * * * * * And it must have been, I think, that scent of night-stock which gave me the sense of a completed episode, or first act, as I stood alone, at last, on the gravel sweep before the Hall. Already the darkness was lifting. The dawn was coming high up in the sky, a sign of fair weather. I have always had a sure sense of direction, and I turned instinctively towards the landmark of my promised destination, although it was invisible from that side of the Hall--screened by the avenue of tall forest trees, chiefly elms, that led up from the principal entrance to the Park. I had noticed one side road leading into this avenue as I had driven up from the station the previous afternoon, and I sought that turning now, with a feeling of certainty that it would take me in the right direction. As, indeed, it did; for it actually skirted the base of "Jervaise Clump," which touched the extreme edge of the Park on that side.