This is the errand I am bound upon.

I know I may confide it to you, and I rely upon your questioning me no more at this time.' With that, as if to change the theme, he led the astounded locksmith back to the night of the Maypole highwayman, to the robbery of Edward Chester, to the reappearance of the man at Mrs Rudge's house, and to all the strange circumstances which afterwards occurred.

He even asked him carelessly about the man's height, his face, his figure, whether he was like any one he had ever seen--like Hugh, for instance, or any man he had known at any time--and put many questions of that sort, which the locksmith, considering them as mere devices to engage his attention and prevent his expressing the astonishment he felt, answered pretty much at random.
At length, they arrived at the corner of the street in which the house stood, where Mr Haredale, alighting, dismissed the coach.

'If you desire to see me safely lodged,' he said, turning to the locksmith with a gloomy smile, 'you can.' Gabriel, to whom all former marvels had been nothing in comparison with this, followed him along the narrow pavement in silence.

When they reached the door, Mr Haredale softly opened it with a key he had about him, and closing it when Varden entered, they were left in thorough darkness.
They groped their way into the ground-floor room.