cked, in which nothing lived to deliver so
much as a groan; and the fancy was not a little improved by our
emergence into what resembled a tract of country through a gateway
similar to that by which we had entered, over which there faintly
glimmered out to the sheen of a near lamp the figure of Our Lady of
Boulogne erect in some carving of a boat.

"Foreigners is a queer lot," exclaimed Caudel. "I dunno as I should
much relish living between them walls. How much farther off is it,
sir?"

"About ten minutes," said I.

"A blooming walk, Mr. Barclay, sir, begging your pardon. Wouldn't it
have been as well if you'd had ordered a fee-hacre to stand by ready to
jump aboard of?"

"A fee what?" said I.

"What's the French for a cab, sir?"

"Oh, I see what you mean. No. It's all down-hill for the lady. A
carriage makes a noise; then there is the cabman to be left behind to
tell all that he knows."

Caudel grunted an assent, and we strode onwards in silence. It was an
autumn night, but the air was very soft, and the largest of the
luminaries shone with the mellow glory of a summer that was yet rich
and beautiful in its decay. From afar, in the direction of the Calais
Road, came the dim rumbling noise of a heavy vehicle, like the sound of
a diligence in full trot; otherwise the dark and breezeless atmosphere
was of an exquisite serenity--too placid indeed to please me; for
though the yacht was to be easily towed out of Boulogne harbour, I had
no fancy for finding myself becalmed close off the pier-heads when the
dawn broke.

The Rue de Maquetra was--is, I may say; I presume it still exists--a
long, narrow lane leading to a pretty valley. Something more than
half-way up it, on the left-hand side, stands a tall convent wall, the
shadow of which, dominated as the heights were by trees on such a
motionless midnight as this, plunged the roadway into deepest gloom.
The whole length of the lane, to the best of my remembrance, was
illuminated by two, at the outside by three, lamps which revealed
nothing but their own flames, and so bewildered instead of assisting
the eye.

Directly opposite the convent wall stood the old chateau, darkened and
thickened in front by a profusion of shrubbery, with a short length of
wall, as I have already said, at both extremities of it. The grounds
belonging to the house, as they rose with the hill, were divided from
the lane by a thick hedge which terminated at a distance of some two