Escape from the room was safe and easy, as this was the parlor chamber on the ground floor of the house.
The window opened, but with a sudden thought he turned back and put out the lights and locked as well as bolted the door. These precautions he thought were necessary to delay the discovery of his flight.
Then he went back to the window and stepped through it, closing it behind him.
Where now?
To the Chuxton railway station and on to London, to lose himself in that great wilderness of human beings until he could take ship to some foreign country with which there was no extradition treaty.
But what a night it was! Dark as pitch but for the spectral light of the snow. The snow was still falling heavily as ever, but the wind had risen in mighty strength and was driving not only the falling but the fallen snow into drifts.
If he had but a lantern! But that was an impossible convenience to him.
He drew the bottle from his pocket, took another long draught from it, replaced it, and set out through “night and storm and darkness” and bitterest cold on his flight for life.
More by instinct or accident than by light and knowledge he found his way around the back wall of the rectory garden to that country road which ran in front of the church, the rectory and Haymore Park, and crossed the highroad at about a mile distant.
The snow fell thicker and faster, the wind rose higher and stronger, and the night grew colder and darker.