All this I did without one sound.

I opened the door, passed out, shut it softly.

Dim dawn glimmered in the yard.

The great gates were closed and locked; but a wicket in one of them was only latched.

Through that I departed: it, too, I shut; and now I was out of Thornfield.
A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which stretched in the contrary direction to Millcote; a road I had never travelled, but often noticed, and wondered where it led: thither I bent my steps.