And here he was, by a very Providence, as has been said--inscrutably severe in its methods though it might be--actually on the premises which he might in vain have sought to enter lacking that Divine castigation. It seemed incredible that his good fortune stood to be stultified through the perversity of a party of fools, too obstinately loyal to their instructions to give him the least tether for his operations. Nor should it be--on that he was determined--whatever close watch they kept over their tongues, or over his movements when once he was in a condition to rise and creep about his room. He was able to learn so much--that he owed this rigid supervision to the man who had rescued him, and could form, perhaps, his own shrewd conclusions as to some of Brion’s reasons for desiring to keep him and his Uncle apart. For this Melton was as sharp as a ferret, and had that sort of microscopic mental eye which can discover whole truths in grains of unconsidered suggestion. So, when the time came, he went, quite quietly and tamely, and his watchers breathed a sigh of relief that their responsibility was at an end. That same night Quentin Bagott was sitting in his chamber alone. A solitary lamp burned over his head, diluting but not obliterating a patch of moonlight which fell through the open casement upon the floor. The window looked out upon the waste ground to the rear of the Grange, and was flung wide, for the night was still and warm. He sat, his eyes fixed on the carpet, on the patch of moonlight there, drearily hypnotised by it. There was a criss-cross pattern in it which seemed to entangle his brain. Wrenching himself once free from the obsession, he turned to the table to drink, and again came round to stare at the carpet. Something had happened to it. In the thick of the moonlit lattice lay a folded scrap of paper which had not been there before. It looked as if entangled in the meshes--or in his brain. He sat staring at it, trying to think. Suddenly he rose unsteadily, and stooped, and gained the thing, and unfolded it and read. He stood a long time reading; then went softly and quickly to the window and bent out. ‘_Lavabo inter innocentes manus meas_,’ he said low into the night. A man came out of the shadows and approached the window. ‘_Et circumdabo altare tuum, Domine_,’ he responded, small and quiet. ‘Whence come you--and wherefore?’ asked Bagott in a fearful voice. ‘From Heaven--for your salvation,’ was the solemn answer. So, by way of the main gate, and the tree across the moat, had Melton achieved his purpose. He had simply ‘evacuated’ to order, had gone straight round by the copse, and had lain hidden all day in the secret place of which only he knew. Then at night he had emerged, and by good fortune had reached his quarry.