In the strangeness of his position, and in his uncertainty as to what future course he was to take, his interview with the girl, on the road outside the village, had gone, for the time, clean out of his mind; when he looked at his watch, he discovered, to his dismay, that it was nearly eight o’clock. More than that, he did not even know where the wood of which she had spoken was situated, and he dared not ask the way to it. Trusting to blind chance to guide him, and looking about anxiously over the flat landscape, for anything at all answering the description of a mill, or even of a wood, he lost more valuable time still; and at last, in sheer desperation, remembering that the last train for London started at a few minutes to the hour of nine, he set off, at a rapid rate, for the railway station—running along the road now and then, in his anxiety not to miss it. “If the real Dandy Chater has kept his promise to the girl, even so far as taking her to London is concerned,” he muttered, as he ran on, “they’ve met in the wood long ago, and are well on their way to the station. I’ll follow them; that’s the best course. Besides—I don’t like the look of that business with the girl; her eyes seem to haunt me somehow. If I miss them at the station, I can at least go on to that place she mentioned at Woolwich, and keep my eye on the man.” The wind and rain were less heavy and boisterous than they had been, and the moon was struggling faintly through driving clouds. As the man hurried along, seeing the lights of the station in the distance before him, a figure suddenly broke through the low hedge beside the road, scarcely more than a hundred yards in advance, and ran on in front, in the same direction. Philip Crowdy, hearing the warning shriek of the train, hurried on faster than before. At the very entrance of the station-yard was a gas lamp, which served to light feebly the dreary-looking muddy roads converging upon it. And, beneath this lamp, the figure which had broken through the hedge, and run on before, had stopped, and was carefully scraping and shaking some heavy wet clay from its boots. Catching a glimpse of the face of the figure, as he hurried past, Crowdy, with an exclamation, drew his hat down well over his face, and pulled his coat collar higher. There was no time even to get a ticket; Crowdy raced across the booking-office, and reached the platform just in time; wrenched open a door, and jumped in. He heard a shout, and, looking out, saw a porter pulling open another door, while the man who had been so particular about his boots sprang into the train. Then, the door was slammed, and the train, already in motion, steamed out of the station.