He did not, however, go on Friday.  Dale kept the house under observation off and on all day, and again in the evening.  Mr. Barradine went out driving twice; but the carriage brought him back each time.  How many more postponements?  Would he go to-morrow?  Yes, he would go to-morrow; but this involved more delay.  It would be useless to follow him to-morrow, because he would never pass through the wood on Sunday.  No, he would spend Sunday inside his park-rails, going to the Abbey church, walking about the garden, looking at the stables and the dairy.  Moreover, Sunday would be the one dangerous day in the woods—­nobody at work, everybody free to wander; young men with their sweethearts coming off the rides for privacy; cottagers with squoils hunting the squirrels all through church time perhaps.  Dale ground his teeth, shook his fist at the lighted windows, and thought.  “If he does not go to-morrow—­I can’t wait.  My self-control will be exhausted, and I shall certainly do something fullish.”

But Mr. Barradine went home that Saturday.  Between ten and eleven in the morning the brougham stood at the door, a four-wheeled cab was fetched and loaded with luggage, and the two vehicles drove off round the corner southward on their way to Waterloo.  And Dale felt his spirits lightening and a fierce gaiety filling his breast.  The time of inaction was nearly over; this hateful sitting down under one’s wrongs would not last long now; soon he would be doing something.  He took quite a pleasant walk through Chelsea, and over the river to Lambeth, where, after a snack of lunch, he read the newspapers in a Public Library.  The Library was a quiet, convenient resort; and yesterday he had written a letter there, to Mr. Ridgett at Rodchurch Post Office—­not because he really had anything to communicate, but because it seemed necessary, or at least wise, to send off a letter from London.

He enjoyed a good night’s rest, and lay in bed till late on Sunday afternoon.  He intended to travel by the mail train—­the train that left Waterloo at ten-fifteen, and went through the night dropping post-bags all the way down the line; and it was extremely improbable that he would meet any Rodchurch friends in this train, but he understood that the dangerous part of his proceedings would begin when he got to Waterloo, and he was a little worried, even muddled, as to how and where to change his clothes—­or rather to put on that canvas suit over his ordinary clothes.  If he made the change here, and any one saw him going out, it might seem a bit odd.

But then his confusion of ideas passed off, and all became clear.  He must change at the last possible moment, of course; and he thought, “Why am I so muddled about such simple things?  I must pull myself together.  Of course I don’t mind being seen in London; it is down there that I don’t wish to be seen.  Anybody is welcome to see me till I’m started, an’ perhaps the more people that see me the better.”