A few steps brought him into the open fields, and fancying he saw Leonard at a little distance before him, he hurried on in that direction.

But he soon found he had been deceived by the stump of a tree, and began to fear he must have taken the wrong course.

He looked around in vain for some object to guide him.

The darkness was so profound that he could see nothing, and he set off again at random, and not without much self-reproach and misgiving.

At last, he reached a hedge, and continued to skirt it, until he perceived through the bushes the light of a lantern in the adjoining field.