match and reopened the door.

Stepping as noiselessly as possible on the gravel, I pushed the bike
across the yard. There was a large patch of moonlight between me and
the end of the drive, and I went through it with a horrible feeling
in the small of my back that at any moment someone might fling up
a window and bawl out, "Stop thief!" Nothing of the kind occurred,
however, and with a vast sense of thankfulness I gained the shelter of
the laurels.

The only thing that worried me was the thought that there might be a
lodge at the top. If so I was by no means out of the wood. Even the
most guileless of lodge-keepers would be bound to think it rather
curious that I should be creeping out at this time of night
accompanied by his master's bicycle.

Keeping one hand against the bushes to guide me, and pushing the
machine with the other, I groped my way slowly up the winding path. As
I came cautiously round the last corner I saw with a sigh of relief
that my fears were groundless. A few yards ahead of me in the
moonlight was a plain white gate, and beyond that the road.

I opened the gate with deliberate care, and closed it in similar
fashion behind me. Then for a moment I stopped. I was badly out of
breath, partly from weakness and partly from excitement, so laying the
machine against the bank I leaned back beside it.

Everything was quite still. On each side of me the broad, white,
moonlit roadway stretched away into the night, flanked by a row of
telegraph poles which stood out like gaunt sentries. It was curious