At last it seemed to occur to him that he ought to intercept me.
"But, sir, Mr.Halifax said--" "I am going to look for Mr.Halifax." And I escaped outside.

Anything beyond his literal duty did not strike the faithful Jem.

He stood on the door-sill, and gazed after me with a hopeless expression.
"I s'pose you mun have your way, sir; but Mr.Halifax said, 'Jem, you stop y'ere,'-- and y'ere I stop." He went in, and I heard him bolting the door, with a sullen determination, as if he would have kept guard against it--waiting for John--until doomsday.
I stole along the dark alley into the street.

It was very silent--I need not have borrowed Jem's exterior, in order to creep through a throng of maddened rioters.

There was no sign of any such, except that under one of the three oil-lamps that lit the night-darkness at Norton Bury lay a few smouldering hanks of hemp, well resined.