It was just half-past one when Savaroff brought the car round to the front door.  I was standing in the hall talking to McMurtrie, who had decided not to accompany us into Plymouth.  Of Sonia I had seen nothing since our unfortunately interrupted interview in the morning.

“Well,” said the doctor, as with a grinding of brakes the car pulled up outside, “we can look on this as the real beginning of our little enterprise.”

I picked up my Gladstone.  “Let’s hope,” I said, “that the end will be equally satisfactory.”

McMurtrie nodded.  “I fancy,” he said, “that we need have no apprehensions.  Providence is with us, Mr. Lyndon—­Providence or some equally effective power.”

There was a note of irony in his voice which left one in no doubt as to his own private opinion of our guiding agency.

I stepped out into the drive carrying my bag.  Savaroff, who was sitting in the driving seat of the car, turned half round towards me.

“Put it on the floor at the back under the rug,” he said.  “You will sit in front with me.”

He spoke in his usual surly fashion, but by this time I had become accustomed to it.  So contenting myself with a genial observation to the effect that I should be charmed, I tucked the bag away out of sight and clambered up beside him into the left-hand seat.  McMurtrie stood in the doorway, that mirthless smile of his fixed upon his lips.

“Good-bye,” I said; “we shall meet at Tilbury, I suppose—­if not before?”

He nodded.  “At Tilbury certainly.  Au revoir, Mr. Nicholson.”

And with this last reminder of my future identity echoing in my ears, we slid off down the drive.

All the way into Plymouth Savaroff maintained a grumpy silence.  He was naturally a taciturn sort of person, and I think, besides that, he had taken a strong dislike to me from the night we had first seen each other.  If this were so I had certainly not done much to modify it.  I felt that the man was naturally a bully, and it always pleases and amuses me to be disliked by bullies.  Indeed, if I had had no other reason for responding to Sonia’s proffered affection I should have done so just because Savaroff was her father.

My companion’s sulks, however, in no way interfered with my enjoyment of the drive.  It was a perfect day on which to regain one’s liberty.  The sun shone down from a blue sky flecked here and there with fleecy white clouds, and on each side of the road the hedges and trees were just beginning to break into an almost shrill green.  The very air seemed to be filled with a delicious sense of freedom and adventure.

As we got nearer to Plymouth I found a fresh source of interest and pleasure in the people that we passed walking along the road or driving in traps and cars.  After my long surfeit of warders and convicts the mere sight of ordinarily-dressed human beings laughing and talking filled me with the most intense satisfaction.  On several occasions I had a feeling that I should like to jump out of the car and join some group of cheerful-looking strangers who turned to watch us flash past.  This feeling became doubly intense when we actually entered Plymouth, where the streets seemed to be almost inconveniently crowded with an extraordinary number of attractive-looking girls.