Widnes Examiner. — 1909-12-04 (Widnes, Cheshire, England)

CHAPTER IX.  Baxendale Hall blazed high ' that night, while the mob surged about it, clamouring more and more feebly for John Baxendale, and half afraid—simple country folk that they uere—to see the ruin before them, though it was not of their making. As the dawn came up in the sky, after some small attempt had been made to subdue the flames, "be people crept away to their homes, looking back at the smoking, blackened ruin that once had been Baxendale Hall. Some talked of the strange happenings of thexi days, and of how curiously John-Baxendale had changed in a moment from what they had known; others pointed to the wood where the body of the dead girl had lain, aid whispered of madness; remembered the wild, shrieking figure they had seen in the lurid light of the flames, and thanked Heaven, piously enough, that John Baxendale wae done for. Far better to pethh like that than to live to face the consequences of what he had done.  Officialdom, as known in Deepington, had meanwhile taken charge of the business, and had removed the body of poor Bella Ogden to the little hotel in the town. More than that, a guard of one rustic policeman had been set over the tree; and wires had flashed back and forth to London, summoning aid. The newspapers would be full of the matter on the morrow; the name of Baxendale would ring from one end of the country to the other.  But to-night the real John Baxendale, staggering away from the house through the darkness that was fitfully illumined by the blazing building, and hearing the shouts and cries of the people who surrounded the place, and who seemed to clamour most of all for even in the midst of shouts from the more sober-minded that the fire should be subdued, and the valuable things in Baxendale Hall saved, remembered only that he was a fugitive, and that another man, in his likeness, and supposed to be John Baxendale, had doubtless perished in his stead. In a sense, that lifted from him the onus of the business. John Baxendale, branded a murderer, would be supposed to be dead, , and so to have atoned for his crime. The further thought that it left this real John Baxendale homeless and nameless did not occur to the man at that time. He had escaped; there was time at least for him to think.  He waited about a long time until after the people had cleared away, and until he could see the stark naked walls of Nihat had been his home standing up against the morning sky. In a sense, the despair that had entered into his heart at that time brought mith it a new courage. So much had been lost, and so much of doubt and difficulty and danger faced him that he could sweep aside all minor considerations, and could face what had to be faced as a straight issue. And nick of all at ti..tt time he decided that he must take the matter into his own hands, and *fight this battle of life or death himself. . . .  He -would be looked for at the cottage; clearly he must not go there; rior must he go to any usual haunts where he was known; until it could be discovered whether or not this other man had perished in the flames or was alive to carry on the work to which he had set his hand. John Baxendale must set away, and must watch and wait, depending only on himself and his own strength to prove his innocence.