It was not long before Melun lowered the shutters again, and Kathleen's heart gave a little thump, for looking out on the country she realised that she was on a familiar road. She recognised the high hedges between which they were running as those which border the long lane running between Croydon and Hayes Common.
The car began to shoot up-hill, and they went over a breezy heath, subsequently running down into the valley, as Kathleen judged, of Farnborough.
For a little while they kept to the main road and then turned off to the left again. Half an hour's run brought them to Westerham—from which place Sir Paul took his title.
As the car turned to the left once more Kathleen had little doubt that they were bound for Sevenoaks; nor was she wrong.
But the car did not stop here; it swept past the Royal Crown Hotel, past the old Grammar School, past the wooded stretch of Knole Park, down the steep and tortuous River Hill.
At Hildenborough the car turned up to the right and raced through the Weald of Kent. This was all familiar ground to Kathleen, and she realised that to some extent they were doubling on their tracks, making a zigzag course along the valley at the base of Ide and Toys Hill.
Suddenly the car stopped, and Kathleen, looking through the open window, saw the chauffeur get down from the seat and open a gate which apparently led to a more private path.
Through this the car passed and was swallowed up in a wood. But the jolting and rattling over ruts soon ceased, the road widened and became smooth, and they began to climb in curves up the face of a steep hill.
By-and-by they came to a small plateau on the edge of which was an old farmhouse. The ground dropped almost sheer away from it at the southern end, while almost the whole of the front of it was washed by a muddy and apparently deep pool.
As they drew up before the little low doorway Kathleen heard several great dogs baying at different points.