It must have been a very long time, for the moon had sunk, and a bright morning was breaking when I came to myself.

My clothes were all sodden with dew, and my coat-sleeve was drenched with blood from my wounded thumb.

The smarting of it recalled in an instant all the particulars of my night's adventure, and I sprang to my feet with the feeling that I might hardly yet be safe from my pursuers.

But to my astonishment, when I came to look round me, neither house nor garden were to be seen.

I had been lying in an angle of the hedge close by the highroad, and just a little lower down was a long building, which proved, upon my approaching it, to be the very station at which I had arrived upon the previous night.