"It is best," he thought, "that the poor old mother did not know when I said 'good-bye' to her this afternoon, and she bade me come back soon, that I should never come back, that I had a farther destination than Italy before me; best that my father did not know that we should never meet again. Never! never! Ah, God! it is a long word." "Yet it must be done," he went on. "If I want to drag this miserable life out, I must do it elsewhere than in England. That sleuth-hound will surely find me there; it is possible that he will even track me to the antipodes. Yet, if I were sure that he is lying about--having seen my face before, I would go back and brave him. Where did he ever see it?--where?--where? To my knowledge I have never seen him." He rose and walked to the railing above the moraine, and looked down at the glacier, and listened to the cracking made by the seracs. "I might make an end of it now," he thought. "If I threw myself down there, it would be looked upon as an ordinary Alpine accident. But, no! that is the coward's resource. I have blasted my life for ever by one foul deed; let me endure it as a reparation for my crime. But what is my future to be? Am I to live a miserable existence for years in some distant country, frightened at every strange face, dreading to read every newspaper that reaches me for fear that I shall see myself denounced in it, and never knowing a moment's peace or tranquillity? Ah, Gervase! I wonder what you would say if you knew that, for your sake, I have sacrificed every hope of happiness in this world and all my chances of salvation in the next." He went back to the big stone after uttering these thoughts and sat down wearily upon it. "If I could know that that Spaniard was baffled at last and had lost all track of me, I could make my arrangements more calmly for leaving Europe, might even look forward to returning to England some day, and spending my life there while expiating my crime. But, while I know nothing, I must go on and on till at last I reach some place where I may feel safe." He looked at his watch as he spoke to himself, and saw that the night was passing. "Another five minutes' rest," he said, "and I will start again across the pass."