Run to Earth: A Novel

by M. E. Braddon

That gentleman emerged presently from the inn-yard, where he had been hanging about, listening to all that was to be heard, and talking to the ostler.

He took the letter from the boy's hand, and rewarded him with the promised shilling. Then he left the yard, and walked down a lane leading towards the river.

In this unfrequented lane he tore open the envelope, and read his letter.

It was very brief:

"Since my only chance of escaping persecution is to accede, in some measure, to your demands, I will consent to see you. If you will wait for me to-night, at nine o'clock, by the water-side, to the left of the bridge, I will try to come to that spot at that hour. Heaven grant the meeting may be our last!"

Exactly as the village church clock struck nine, a dark figure crossed a low, flat meadow, lying near the water, and appeared upon the narrow towing-path by the river's edge. A man was walking on this pathway, his face half hidden by a slouched hat, and a short pipe in his month.

He lifted his hat presently, and bared his head to the cool night breeze. His hair was closely cropped, like that of a convict. The broad moonlight shining fall upon his face, revealed a dark, weather-beaten countenance—the face of the tramp who had stood at the park-gates to watch the passing of Sir Oswald's funeral train—the face of the tramp who had loitered in the stable-yard of the "Hen and Chickens"—the face of the man who had been known in Ratcliff Highway by the ominous name of Black Milsom.

This was the man who waited for Honoria Eversleigh in the moonlight by the quiet river.

He advanced to meet her as she came out of the meadow and appeared upon the pathway.

"Good evening, my lady," he said. "I suppose I ought to be humbly beholden to such a grand lady as you for coming here to meet the likes of me. But it seems rather strange you must needs come out here in secret to see such a very intimate acquaintance as I am, considering as you're the mistress of that great castle up yonder. I must say it seems uncommon hard a man can't pay a visit to his own—"