By and by the road was completely deserted.

The lights no longer shone from the lower floors of the wayside cottages, but, after lingering for a while in the bedroom windows, vanished altogether.

The whole country slept.
Then followed hour after hour of dogged walking.

A thick haze encircled the moon, and under it a denser exhalation began to creep up from the sodden land.

In the silence the fog gathered till it seemed to bar the way like a regiment of white ghosts, wavering and closing its ranks as the wind stirred over the levels.