Odette Rider! A woman still under suspicion of murder, a woman whom it was his duty, if she were guilty, to bring to the scaffold, and the thought of her turned him hot and cold! He passed through to his bedroom which adjoined the sitting-room, put the wallet on a table by the side of his bed, locked the bedroom door, opened the windows and prepared himself, as best he could, for the night.
There was a train leaving Hertford at five in the morning and he had arranged to be called in time to catch it.

He took off his boots, coat, vest, collar and tie, unbuckled his belt--he was one of those eccentrics to whom the braces of civilisation were anathema--and lay down on the outside of the bed, pulling the eiderdown over him.

Sleep did not come to him readily.

He turned from side to side, thinking, thinking, thinking.
Suppose there had been some mistake in the time of the accident at Ashford?
Suppose the doctors were wrong and Thornton Lyne was murdered at an earlier hour?
Suppose Odette Rider was in reality a cold-blooded----.

He growled away the thought.
He heard the church clock strike the hour of two and waited impatiently for the quarter to chime--he had heard every quarter since he had retired to bed.