an intensely egotistical and unfeeling man, but the sight of his

victim, his first victim, bloody and pitiful at his feet, may have

released some long pent fountain of remorse which for a time may

have flooded whatever scheme of action he had contrived.

After the murder of Mr. Wicksteed, he would seem to have struck

across the country towards the downland. There is a story of a

voice heard about sunset by a couple of men in a field near Fern

Bottom. It was wailing and laughing, sobbing and groaning, and ever

and again it shouted. It must have been queer hearing. It drove up

across the middle of a clover field and died away towards the

hills.

That afternoon the Invisible Man must have learnt something of

the rapid use Kemp had made of his confidences. He must have

found houses locked and secured; he may have loitered about

railway stations and prowled about inns, and no doubt he read the

proclamations and realised something of the nature of the campaign

against him. And as the evening advanced, the fields became dotted

here and there with groups of three or four men, and noisy with the

yelping of dogs. These men-hunters had particular instructions in

the case of an encounter as to the way they should support one

another. But he avoided them all. We may understand something of

his exasperation, and it could have been none the less because

he himself had supplied the information that was being used so

remorselessly against him. For that day at least he lost heart; for

214

The Invisible Man