He was tired, world-weary, utterly sick of life. The duties of his office pressed heavily upon him; but most burdensome of all was the ever-present dread that the threatened blow should fall and crush him. He wanted air: he wanted to be alone to think. And so, when that afternoon he alighted at Godalming and returned the salutes of the station-master and book-stall keeper, he started off up the steep road as far as the Charterhouse, and from that point struck off by a narrow footpath which led away across the brown ploughed fields to where the Hog's Back stretched before him in the blue distance. The autumn sun shone brightly in the clear, grey sky, and the trees in all their glory of brown and gold shed their leaves upon him as he passed. Save the station-master and the book-stall clerk, none had recognised him. This was fortunate, for now he was free, out in the open country with its rich meadows and picturesque hills and valleys, until the hour when he must dine with his supporters and utter some trite sayings regarding the work of the Government and its policy abroad. He was fond of walking, and was glad to escape from Downing Street and from the House for a single evening; so he strode along down the path with a swinging gait, though with a heart not light enough for the full enjoyment of his lovely surroundings. The by-path he had taken was that which leads over the hills from Godalming past Field Place to the little old-world village of Compton. Having crossed the ploughed lands, he entered a thick coppice, where the path began to run down with remarkable steepness into wide meadows, on the other side of which lay a dark wood. The narrow path running through the coppice terminated at a stile which gave entrance to the park-like meadow-land. Descending this path he halted at the stile, leaning against it. Alone in that rural solitude, far removed from the mad hurry of London life, he stood to think. Each gust of wind brought down a shower of brown leaves from the oaks above, and the only other sound was the cry of a pheasant in the wood. For at least five minutes he stood motionless. Then he suddenly roused himself, and some words escaped his lips: "How strange," he murmured, "that my footsteps should lead me to this very spot, of all others! Why, I wonder, has Fate directed me here?" He turned and gazed slowly round upon the scene spread before him, the green meadows, the dark wood, the sloping hill with its bare, brown fields, and the Hog's Back rising in the far distance, with the black line of the telegraph standing out against the sky. With slow deliberation he took in every feature of the landscape. Then, facing about, with his back to the stile, his eyes wandered up the steep path by which he had just descended from the crest of the hill.