Produced by Andrew Hodson Transcriber's Note: Errors found: A name is sometimes spelt 'Med. Tetloe' and sometimes 'Med-Tetloe' & Cleopatre maybe wrong. So that just 7 bit text is used the accented & ligatured words are repeated here with numbers for codepages 437 & 850: Acute e 130 e: blase, chasmed, Cleopatre, elite & unperturbed i with 2 (or 3) dots 139 i: dais & dais ea ligature 145 ae: mediaeval u with 2 dots 129 ue: Duerer's 'The Hound of Heaven' poem, The letter to father and separate 'All things betray Thee Who betrayest Me.' quote are in a smaller font. THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE BY HUGH WALPOLE AUTHOR OF "MR. PERRIN AND MR. TRAILL" MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED, ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON _New Edition September_,1919 TO MY FRIEND R. A. STREATFIELD CONTENTS CHAP. I. LAST CHAPTER II. BUNNING III. THE BODY COMES TO TOWN IV. MARGARET CRAVEN V. STONE ALTARS VI. THE WATCHERS VII. TERROR VIII. REVELATION OF BUNNING (I) IX. REVELATION OF BUNNING (II) X. CRAVEN XI. FIFTH OF NOVEMBER XII. LOVE TO THE "VALSE TRISTE" XIII. MRS. CRAVEN XIV. GOD XV. PRELUDE TO A JOURNEY XVI. OLVA AND MARGARET XVII. FIRST CHAPTER Up vistaed hopes I sped; And shot, precipitated Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat--and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet-- All things betray thee, who betrayest Me. The Hound of Heaven. 16 HALLAM STREET, _October_ 11, 1911. CHAPTER I LAST CHAPTER 1 "There _is_ a God after all." That was the immense conviction that faced him as he heard, slowly, softly, the leaves, the twigs, settle themselves after that first horrid crash which the clumsy body had made. Olva Dune stood for an instant straight and stiff, his arms heavily at his side, and the dank, misty wood slipped back once more into silence. There was about him now the most absolute stillness: some trees dripped in the mist; far above him, on the top of the hill, the little path showed darkly--below him, in the hollow, black masses of fern and weed lay heavily under the chill November air--at his feet there was the body. In that sudden after silence he had known beyond any question that might ever again arise, that there was now a God--God had watched him. With grave eyes, with hands that did not tremble, he surveyed and then, bending, touched the body. He knelt in the damp, heavy soil, tore open the waistcoat, the shirt; the flesh was yet warm to his touch--the heart was still. Carfax was dead.