The lamps were dim, few, and widely separated; so far as company was concerned, I might have been a thousand miles from an inhabited house.

In spite of myself, the thought of danger persistently assailed my mind.

I began to review every circumstance of my journey, twisting the trivial into some ominous shape, magnifying the significance of everything which might justly seem suspicious, studying in the light of my new apprehensions every expression of Bauer's face and every word that had fallen from his lips.
I could not persuade myself into security.

I carried the queen's letter, and--well, I would have given much to have old Sapt or Rudolf Rassendyll by my side.
Now, when a man suspects danger, let him not spend his time in asking whether there be really danger or in upbraiding himself for timidity, but let him face his cowardice, and act as though the danger were real.
If I had followed that rule and kept my eyes about me, scanning the sides of the road and the ground in front of my feet, instead of losing myself in a maze of reflection, I might have had time to avoid the trap, or at least to get my hand to my revolver and make a fight for it; or, indeed, in the last resort, to destroy what I carried before harm came to it.

But my mind was preoccupied, and the whole thing seemed to happen in a minute.