Unless the paper was mistaken in this last statement, I had probably passed the police on my way into Culbut, and they were now at Magnolia Hall awaiting my return. According to the descriptions given by the Master of McGillicuddy of the escaped prisoner, he might have been my twin brother dressed up in my own clothes. I need not reproduce the scorn with which the journal, which was that chiefly read by the members of the dirty set, expressed itself about the newly created peer, who had been taken in by this unscrupulous criminal, and had even allowed him to become engaged to his daughter. It pained me greatly, and would certainly pain Lord Magnolia no less when he should come to read it. The blow was a stunning one. If there was such a criminal at large as had been described by the Master of McGillicuddy, which I had no reason to doubt, it would be very difficult to persuade the police that I was not that criminal. Indeed, how could I expect to persuade them of anything! I could give no account of myself that would satisfy them that they were arresting an innocent person, and even if the Highland police eventually disclaimed me, I knew it would take some time to get them to Culbut, and in the meantime I should certainly be kept in custody. It was quite certain that the moment I returned to Magnolia Hall I should be arrested, even if I got so far, and at dawn the next morning, when Miriam and I ought to have been starting on the happiest of journeys together, I should be most comfortably housed in prison. The more I thought of it, the more angry I became at this most unkind stroke of fate, and the more angry with the preposterous Lord Potter, who had undoubtedly brought it upon me. I could not get at Miriam to tell her to start alone and join me somewhere on the road. I could do nothing. I was robbed of all I had hoped for as it seemed just within my grasp. I walked on and on, trying to form some plan. I walked right through Culbut, with my eyes mostly on the ground. By and by, something caused me to lift them, and I found myself passing a little wood, which, with a start of surprise, I recognised as the one from which I had made my first entry into Culbut. It was, as Edward had said, and as was now quite plain to me, part of the grounds of a large institution, and looked, from this side, quite unlike what I had taken it to be when I had entered it from the other. Still, in spite of Edward's description of the kind of country that lay beyond, I had certainly entered this wood from the cave, in the way I have described, and I had not the smallest doubt but what I could return by the same way.