Sight, hearing, perception of himself, and of the world around him, all seemed annihilated. He rode on through dense black shadows, dark clouds which hemmed him in on every side, as if a gigantic pall had fallen from heaven to cover him.
How he became separated from his companions he never knew; but when his senses awoke from that dreadful stupor, he found himself alone, on a common, and in the far distance he saw the glimmer of lights—very feeble and wan beneath the starless sky.
It seemed as if the horse knew his desolate ground, and was going straight towards these lights. The animal belonged to the rector, and was, no doubt, familiar with the country.
Reginald Eversleigh had just sufficient consciousness of surrounding circumstances to remember this. He made no attempt to guide the horse. What did it matter whither he went? He had forgotten his promise to meet the other men on the river-brink; he had forgotten everything, except that the work of a demon had progressed in silence, and that its fatal issue was about to burst like a thunder-clap upon him.
"Victor Carrington has told me that this fortune shall be mine; he has failed once, but will not fail always," he said to himself.
The disappearance of Lionel Dale had struck like a thunderbolt on the baronet; but it was a thunderbolt whose falling he had anticipated with shuddering horror during every day and every hour since his arrival at Hallgrove.
The lights grew more distinct—feeble lamps in a village street, glimmering candles in cottage windows scattered here and there. The horse reached the edge of the common and turned into a high road. Five minutes afterwards Reginald Eversleigh found himself at the beginning of a little country town.
Lights were burning cheerily in the windows of an inn. The door was open, and from within there came the sound of voices that rang out merrily on the night air.
"Great heaven!" exclaimed Reginald, "how happy these peasants are—these brutish creatures who have no care beyond their daily bread!"
He envied them; and at that moment would have exchanged places with the humblest field-labourer carousing in the rustic tap-room. But it was only now and then the anguish of a guilty conscience took this shape. He was a man who loved the pleasures and luxuries of this world better than he loved peace of mind; better than he loved his own soul.