ered walls; it was
no imposing structure, but a certain air of melancholy aloofness lent it
distinction.

A high wall shut off the village street on the one side, while to the
south and east the mansion was surrounded by a garden. A row of
beech-trees grew close to the windows, a narrow pathway led from a side
door across the garden to a vast orchard. It was doubtless a beautiful
spot in spring or summer, but on this November afternoon it was
inexpressibly dreary. The rain had beaten down the unkempt grass, which
lay in draggled sheaves along the edges of the pathway. Brown, fallen
beech leaves made a sodden carpet around the tree-roots; the trees
themselves, bare and gaunt, lifted their grey, leafless branches towards
the hurrying, wind-driven clouds. The wind moaned fitfully round the
house; every now and then, as though in uncontrollable wrath, it broke
forth into a whistling howl. At intervals bursts of rain were borne by
the tempest against the windows, adding a hurried patter to the tapping
of the long beech branches, which grew near enough to enable the wind to
drive them against the window-panes, while the greater branches strained
and creaked in the blast. Rain-laden clouds swept across the sky,
hastening the darkness of approaching night. It seemed strange that on so
desolate a gloaming the inmates of the Neuhaus had not drawn the curtains
to shut out the sadness of the storm-ravaged garden. The windows remained
like despairing, unblinking eyes gazing at the desolate scene without.
The room wherein was assembled the small company was unlit, save from the
glow from the embers in the stove. The upper grating had been opened, and
in the furnace a handful of half-dry wood sputtered and crackled, rising
sometimes to a momentary flame, in whose glow four persons threw
strangely contorted shadows on the ceiling. But for this, and a faint,
uncertain light which crept through the windows, the room was entirely
dark. When the wood flared, a lady seated to the left of the stove cast a
caricature-like shadow slantwise on the ceiling, her head seeming
gigantic in its piled-up masses of elaborately dressed hair. In the
middle of the room was a huddled figure bending over the centre table. It
seemed to be a mere heap of dark garments. The firelight caught and
illumined a white ruffle and large pale hand belonging to this figure,
but as it was flung out across the sombre covering of the table, the arm
was invisible, and only