"I will not avoid him. Let him do
it," and he pressed forward towards him.
Lord Newhaven looked fixedly at him for a moment, and then disappeared.
"He will follow me and stab me in the back," said Hugh. "I will walk
home by the street where the pavement is up, and let him do it."
He walked slowly, steadily on, looking neither to right nor left.
Presently he came to a barrier across a long deserted street, with a red
lamp keeping guard over it. He walked deliberately up it. He had no
fear. In the middle he stopped, and fumbled in his pocket for a
cigarette.
A soft step was coming up behind him.
"It will be quickly over," he said to himself. "Wait. Don't look round."
He stood motionless. His silver cigarette-case dropped from his hand. He
looked at it for a second, forgetting to pick it up. A dirty hand
suddenly pounced upon it, and a miserable ragged figure flew past him up
the street. Hugh stared after it, bewildered, and then looked round. The
street was quite empty. He drew a long breath, and something between
relief and despair took hold of him.
"Then he does not want to, after all. He has not even followed me. Why
was he there? He was waiting for me. What horrible revenge is he
planning against me. Is he laying a second trap for me?"
* * * * *
The following night Hugh read in the evening papers that Lord Newhaven
had been accidently killed on the line.
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