thicker boots; and it was perhaps essential to the success of my flight
to steal down the stairs in the soft, velvet slippers I was wearing. I
stepped as lightly as I could--lightly but very swiftly, for the servant
was at the top of the upper flight, while I had two to descend. I crept
past the drawing-room door. The heavy house-door opened with a grating
of the hinges; but I stood outside it, in the shelter of the portico;
free, but with the rain and wind of a stormy night in October beating
against me, and with no light save the glimmer of the feeble
street-lamps flickering across the wet pavement.

I knew very well that my escape was almost hopeless, for the success of
it depended very much upon which road of the three lying before me I
should happen to take. I had no idea of the direction of any one of
them, for I had never been out of the house since the night I was
brought to it. The strong, quick running of the servant, and the
passionate fury of the woman, would overtake me if we were to have a
long race; and if they overtook me they would force me back. I had no
right to seek freedom in this wild way, yet it was the only way. Even
while I hesitated in the portico of the house that ought to have been my
home, I heard the shrill scream of the girl within when she found my
door open, and my room empty. If I did not decide instantaneously, and
decide aright, it would have been better for me never to have tried this
chance of escape.

But I did not linger another moment. I could almost believe an angel
took me by the hand, and led me. I darted straight across the muddy
road, getting my thin slippers wet through at once, ran for a few yards,
and then turned sharply round a corner into a street at the end of which
I saw the cheery light of shop-windows, all in a glow in spite of the
rain. On I fled breathlessly, unhindered by any passer-by, for the rain