he had wholly vanished from the London world.  He had but written a
line to his servant, ordering him to repair to Exmundham and await him
there, and enclosing him a check to pay outstanding bills. 

We must now follow the devious steps of the strange being who has
grown into the hero of this story.  He had left his apartment at
daybreak long before his servant was up, with his knapsack, and a
small portmanteau, into which he had thrust--besides such additional
articles of dress as he thought he might possibly require, and which
his knapsack could not contain--a few of his favourite books.  Driving
with these in a hack-cab to the Vauxhall station, he directed the
portmanteau to be forwarded to Moleswich, and flinging the knapsack on
his shoulders, walked slowly along the drowsy suburbs that stretched
far into the landscape, before, breathing more freely, he found some
evidences of rural culture on either side of the high road.  It was
not, however, till he had left the roofs and trees of pleasant
Richmond far behind him that he began to feel he was out of reach of
the metropolitan disquieting influences.  Finding at a little inn,
where he stopped to breakfast, that there was a path along fields, and
in sight of the river, through which he could gain the place of his