He stifled the smouldering fire, pulled out the lantern, and looked at his watch.
It wanted twenty minutes to eleven.
He had plenty of time; so, having extinguished the lantern, and bestowed it in another pocket, he caught up his burden and began to walk up the road at a leisurely pace.
His terrors had cooled, but nevertheless he wished himself well out of the scrape.

The report of the gun still rang in his ears and in fancy he could hear again the buzz of that bullet by his ear.

More than once a shadow lying across the white road gave him a twinge of fear; and when a placid cow poked its nose over the hedge above him, and lowed confidentially, he leapt almost out of his skin.
The task before him, too, gave him no small anxiety.

The directions in the letter were plain enough, but not so the intention of Mrs.
Goodwyn-Sandys.

Did she mean him to elope with her?
He did not care to face the question.