Lights gleamed from the windows. The front door stood wide open, and not a hundred yards away from him he saw the outer door of the glass conservatory which abutted from the drawing-room. He saw with surprise that this was open too.
For a long time he lay waiting, watching, afraid to go on—because he knew the fog would not descend again. The million eyes of the night watched him from a cloudless sky.
Presently from the woods behind him he heard voices and the barking of dogs. A gang of men were beating the spinney, searching for the two convicts.
Within sight of home he would be caught. He rose to his feet, crossed the narrow stretch of turf and walked boldly up the drive.
He stood a moment outside the conservatory door, listening. He heard nothing but the voices of the men in the wood and the barking of the dogs.
He stepped inside the conservatory, closed the door, and then, fumbling for the key, found it. He locked it, and drew the bolts top and bottom which he knew were there. Stooping down he crawled beneath the broad shelf which ran the length of the glass-house. The leaves of a palm and the fronds of a large fern gave him complete shelter.
He stretched himself out full length so as to lie perfectly flat, and as he did so his foot struck a pile of empty flower-pots. They fell over with a crash. He stopped breathing. He thought he detected a woman's voice in the drawing-room. A minute passed, but no one came.
He breathed again. He was safe for the time being. The conservatory door was locked. They would never search Sir Reginald Crichton's house! He was still a free man. And freedom to him now was more than anything else in the world. More than love or honour, or the wealth that might be lying hidden in the tin mine at home, waiting for his father and sister.
CHAPTER XVIII.
ALARMED.