"No," he went on in a strange, low voice, speaking to himself, "it has not changed--not in the least. It is all just the same to-day, as then--just the same." He sighed heavily as he leaned back upon the wooden rail and gazed up the ascent, brown with its carpet of acorns and fallen leaves. "Yes," he continued at last, "it is destiny that has led me here, to this well-remembered spot for the last time before I die-- the justice which demands a life for a life." Throughout the district it would not have been easy to find a more secluded spot than the small belt of dense wood, half of which lay on either side of the footpath. So steep was this path that considerable care had to be exercised during its descent, especially in autumn, when the damp leaves and acorns were slippery, or in winter, when the rain-channels were frozen into precipitous slides. "A life for a life!" he repeated slowly with a strange curl of the lip. He permitted himself to speak aloud because in that rural, solitude he had no fear of eavesdroppers. "I have lived my life," he said, "and now it is ended. My attempted atonement is all to no purpose, for to-day, or to-morrow, a voice as from the grave will arise to condemn me--to drive me to take my life!" He glanced at his watch. "Yes," he sighed. "Four o'clock!--at this very spot--at this hour on a wet day in mid-winter--" And his eyes fixed themselves blankly upon the ground a couple of yards distant from where he was standing. "Six years have gone, and it has remained ever a mystery!" His face was pale, his brow contracted, his teeth firmly set. His eyes still rested upon that spot covered with dead brown leaves. Certainly it was strange that the steep and narrow pathway should possess such fascination for him, for he had wandered there quite involuntarily. It is not too much to say that he would have flown to any other part of England rather than stand upon the spot so closely associated with the chapter in his life's history that he hoped was closed for ever. Suddenly he roused himself, and, walking forward a couple of paces, marked with his stick a square in the dead leaves. Apparently he was deep in calculation, for after he had made the mark he carefully measured, by means of his cane, the distance between the square and the top of the short ascent. On either side of the path was a steep moss-grown bank surmounted by thick hazel-bushes, but on the left a little distance up was an old wooden fence, grey with lichen. He appeared to be deeply interested in this fence, for after going close up to it he measured by careful pacing the distance between it and the spot he had marked out.