That being so, Felix's request was at once preferred. Comrade Dawkes was to know nothing of his movements. If he inquired, as he surely would do, upon the next arrival of the Sarah Dawkes at Limehouse wharf what had become of the runaways, the story was to be the same that he had given to the detective; namely, that Felix and the girl had tramped to Plymouth and there embarked for America.
He earnestly assured Mr. Doggett that a consistent adherence to this story might be worth quite a considerable amount of whisky and tobacco.
The force of the argument seemed great, as thus stated; and Felix wrote down the exact address of his late employer, in order to be able to send a postal order when circumstances connected with his exchequer should enable him to do so.
On Sunday morning Vronsky and he left Basingstoke with the model machinery and all their other effects. At Weybridge the young man left the train, Vronsky proceeding to London without him; and Felix started upon his ten mile walk in some trepidation.
He was now respectably dressed, and might be recognized by any native in the regions of his old home. But he was greatly altered. He had not been to Normansgrave, except on the occasion of his mother's funeral, since he was seventeen. He was now twenty-three, but looked far older, with the strain of his disgrace printed in deep lines upon his sensitive features. He had been clean-shaven, but the difficulties connected with shaving on board the barge had induced him to allow his beard and mustache to grow. The young, soft dark beard gave him a foreign look.
The only thing upon which he ventured in the way of disguise was a pair of blue-tinted spectacles. As a matter of fact, his eyesight was perfect, and no one who had known him in boyhood would have connected the idea of Felix and weak eyes.
He put on a necktie of a kind which in his own proper person he would never have worn; and though he could not suppose that he could be seen at close quarters by anybody who had known him well without recognition, ultimate, if not instantaneous, he yet felt it possible that even a friend should not know him at a glance.
From the police he thought the risk not great. He did not suppose that Rankin Leigh had more than one agent, and his agent had left the neighborhood. The police were not looking for Felix Vanston alive, but for a corpse, which, if their theories were true, could not be in the place where he now was. And even were they seeking for him alive, they would not seek anywhere near his old home.
If he could pass unrecognized by any of the natives round about Normansgrave, all would be well.
And well he knew the habits and haunts of the natives upon a fine spring Sunday!