Ever since his escape from prison he had lived the life of an underground animal. Always in the darkness. And at night, when he had dared sometimes steal a breath of fresh air; the darkness still surrounded him and the silence and the mystery of the night.
For the best part of a year he had been shut off from human intercourse and converse with his fellow men.
Now he suddenly found himself rubbing shoulders with them. He was jostled to and fro; laughter echoed in his ears. The noise of the traffic threatened to deafen him.
He had to keep a tight grip on himself, or he knew he would have bolted—like a thief.
Then, gradually, as his self-confidence returned and he found he was not molested, fear left him and was replaced by a tremendous excitement. He began to feel like a child who has run away from home, or a schoolboy who has escaped the vigilance of his masters. The noise of the streets began to have a meaning for him: colour and movement. The motors and tram-cars and the splendid shops.
And, overhead, the great blue sky. He was free, really a free man again.
At liberty! He mouthed the word lovingly. And he stood still on the pavement and gaped at the men and women who passed to and fro. How easily they took their liberty; how unconscious they seemed of it. They had never known what it was to be imprisoned. They had never known what it was to live behind walls, to be shut up in a narrow cell in the everlasting twilight, without even a window through which one might gaze and be reminded that God's in His heaven, all's well with the world.
Again he laughed. At that moment a policeman passed him and turning his head looked at him. Rupert was standing just outside a shop. Hardly knowing what he was doing he bolted into it. The next moment he cursed himself for a fool and a coward. A huge glass mirror showed him his reflection. He stared at it fascinated. He looked no more like a convict than he looked like the old Rupert Dale he had once known.
An assistant's voice behind the counter asking him what he wanted brought him back to the needs of the moment. By good fortune the shop was a tobacconist's—and Rupert knew he did want something very badly. A smoke. He bought a four-penny cigar, and the chink of money gave him another strange thrill. He spent an unconscionable time in lighting it, but when he ventured into the street again he found to his relief the policeman had gone.
And so eventually he reached the hotel safely and sat down at the open window of the private sitting-room reserved for Lieutenant James Crichton.