The writing must have been hurried, and it had to all appearance been hurriedly dried toward the corner of a perfectly clean leaf of the blotting-paper.  After twice reading, I felt sure that I had made out correctly the following address: 

Miss Giles, 2 Zion Place, Crickgelly, N. Wales.

It was hard under the circumstances, to form an opinion as to the handwriting; but I thought I could recognize the character of some of the doctor’s letters, even in the blotted impression of them.  Supposing I was right, who was Miss Giles?

Some Welsh friend of the doctor’s, unknown to me?  Probably enough.  But why not Alicia herself under an assumed name?  Having sent her from home to keep her out of my way, it seemed next to a certainty that her father would take all possible measures to prevent my tracing her, and would, therefore, as a common act of precaution, forbid her to travel under her own name.  Crickgelly, North Wales, was assuredly a very remote place to banish her to; but then the doctor was not a man to do things by halves:  he knew the lengths to which my cunning and resolution were capable of carrying me; and he would have been innocent indeed if he had hidden his daughter from me in any place within reasonable distance of Barkingham.  Last, and not least important, Miss Giles sounded in my ears exactly like an assumed name.

Was there ever any woman absolutely and literally named Miss Giles?  However I may have altered my opinion on this point since, my mind was not in a condition at that time to admit the possible existence of any such individual as a maiden Giles.  Before, therefore, I had put the precious blotting-paper into my pocket, I had satisfied myself that my first duty, under all the circumstances, was to shape my flight immediately to Crickgelly.  I could be certain of nothing—­not even of identifying the doctor’s handwriting by the impression on the blotting-paper.  But provided I kept clear of Barkingham, it was all the same to me what part of the United Kingdom I went to; and, in the absence of any actual clew to her place of residence, there was consolation and encouragement even in following an imaginary trace.  My spirits rose to their natural height as I struck into the highroad again, and beheld across the level plain the smoke, chimneys, and church spires of a large manufacturing town.  There I saw the welcome promise of a coach—­the happy chance of making my journey to Crickgelly easy and rapid from the very outset.

On my way to the town, I was reminded by the staring of all the people I passed on the road, of one important consideration which I had hitherto most unaccountably overlooked—­the necessity of making some radical change in my personal appearance.