He paused, and his hold on Ruth's arms relaxed, so that she slowly fell away from him, while he stood sternly gazing into the chilly morning haze as though he saw in it some prophetic vision. "And yet," he murmured, "to be hunted down so. To let myself be trapped like vermin--when still I may be preserved, for an instrument to crush out the superstition and the tyranny of these evil days that darken more and more--" "Father! father!" implored Ruth. "Quick! By the vaults. Before it is too late!" "Yes," he went on, letting his keen glance drop on her for a moment, and then fixing it again like some prophetic seer, on empty space. "So it shall be. And my voice shall yet once more be uplifted to cry: Woe! woe! to the doers of wickedness in high places. Yes, I will live. I will live! I will stoop, even to the very dust beneath my feet--to conquer. I will live--and if every hair of my head were a man, I would venture them all in this quarrel." Then he turned, and looked towards the door. "Father!" cried Ruth, dashing aside the tangle of hair all fallen about her face, and clinging to him with agonized clutch. "Father! one kiss--one word--one little word before you go!" But his face was turned stonily upon the door. "Father!" [Sidenote: Alone!] Then he was gone, leaving her stretched where at last he wrenched himself free of her clinging agonized hands, prone and senseless upon the threshold. CHAPTER XXIX. A WELCOME HOME. "Past three o' the clock, and a fine starlight night," piped the old watchman, as he shuffled along, bell and lantern in hand, down Newmarket High Street. "Past three o' the clock." "Hullo! Master Diogenes. Have a care where you're running to," cried a deep good-humoured voice, as the old fellow came trundling full-tilt against the tall, broad-shouldered figure of a man dressed in gray, who was just about to vault on to the back of a fine black horse standing before the door of the Silver Leopard. "Are you looking for an honest man?" "I've found him anyhow, Master Alworth," replied the old man, half lifting his lantern to the face of the speaker, which was shaded by a hat of gray felt, whose broad brim almost covered the long iron-gray locks of his periwig. "'Tis the early bird that catches the worm, they say," continued he. "But you be astir betimes indeed, Master Alworth." "I've a longish journey before me." [Sidenote: The watchman.] "Cambridge?" asked the old fellow. "Nay. Farther by many a mile," answered the other, vaulting into the saddle. "The powers alive! You don't say so! Well, you seem in mighty good trim for the task anyhow! 'Tis many a month,--years not to say--since I've noticed ye so springy-like about the knees, Master Alworth." "H'm," said the traveller, passing his hand across the lower half of his face and then down his thighs. "But I must mind, or I shall be paying for my agility."