“Drop that stick!” said I, pressing the muzzle of the weapon lightly against his forehead as I spoke.  At the touch of the cold steel his body suddenly stiffened and grew rigid, his eyes opened in a horrified stare, and the stick clattered down on the road.

“Talking of fancies,” I pursued, “I have a great mind to that smock-frock of yours, so take it off, and quick about it.”  In a fever of haste he tore off the garment in question, and, he thrusting it eagerly upon me, I folded it over my arm.

“Now,” said I, “since you say you can run, supposing you show me what you can do.  This is a good straight lane—­off with you and do your best, and no turning or stopping, mind, for the moon is very bright, and I am a pretty good shot.”  Hardly waiting to hear me out, the fellow set off up the lane, running like the wind; whereupon, I (waiting only to snatch up his forgotten bread and meat) took to my heels—­down the lane, so that, when I presently stopped to don the smock-frock, its late possessor had vanished as though he had never been.

I hurried on, nevertheless, eating greedily as I went, and, after some while, left the narrow lane behind, and came out on the broad highway that stretched like a great, white riband, unrolled beneath the moon.  And here was another finger-post with the words

“To Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, and the Wells.—­To Bromley and London.”

And here, also, was another placard, headed by that awful word:  Murder—­which seemed to leap out at me from the rest.  And, with that word, there rushed over me the memory of Charmian as I had seen her stand—­white-lipped, haggard of eye, and—­with one hand hidden in the folds of her gown.

So I turned and strove to flee from this hideous word, and, as I went, I clenched my fists and cried within myself:  “I love her —­love her—­no doubt can come between us more—­I love her—­love her—­love her!” Thus I hurried on along the great highroad, but, wherever I looked, I saw this most hateful word; it shone out palely from the shadows; it was scored into the dust at my feet; even across the splendor of the moon, in jagged characters, I seemed to read that awful word:  Murder.

And the soft night-wind woke voices to whisper it as I passed; the somber trees and gloomy hedgerows were full of it; I heard it in the echo of my step—­murder!  Murder!  It was always there, whether I walked or ran, in rough and stony places, in the deep, soft dust, in the dewy, tender grass—­it was always there, whispering at my heels, and refusing to be silenced.

I had gone on, in this way, for an hour or more, avoiding the middle of the road, because of the brilliance of the moon, when I overtook something that crawled in the gloom of the hedge, and approaching, pistol in hand, saw that it was a man.

He was creeping forward slowly and painfully on his hands and knees, but, all at once, sank down on his face in the grass, only to rise, groaning, and creep on once more; and, as he went, I heard him praying: