edge of the wood. His progress was difficult by reason of the darkness and the density of the undergrowth, but fortune favored him in so far that he presently hit upon a public footpath, and so came eventually to a stile giving on a high road. At the next cross-ways was a sign-post, which he read by the light of a wax match, and thence onward limped steadily forward for Prior’s Tarrant, with growing confidence that he had eluded pursuit.
Great, then, was his dismay when, on turning into his own park, he became conscious that he was being shadowed by someone whose stealthy pid-pad sounded resolutely behind him. As he mounted the terrace steps it grew louder; the man who was following him was close behind and gaining quickly. Something in the Duke’s tired brain seemed to snap, and with just a glance at the lighted window of the dining-room where General Sadgrove was in the act of drawing up the blind, he turned at the top of the steps and flung himself, half mad with rage and terror, on the faithful Azimoolah, who had picked him up near the signpost and shepherded him safely for the rest of the journey.
[195]
