came to a halt, waiting for the next
ray of moonlight. At the same moment a rush of wind swept over the
chimney-stacks, and on the wind there seemed to ride a human sigh.

On this last point I may err. The gust had passed some seconds before
I caught myself detecting this peculiar note, and trying to disengage
it from the natural chords of the storm. From the next gust it was
absent. And then, to my dismay, the light faded from the window.

I was half-minded to call out when it appeared again, this time in two
windows--those next on the right to that where it had shone before.
Almost at once it increased in brilliance, as if the person who
carried it from the smaller room to the larger were lighting more
candles; and now the illumination was strong enough to make fine
gold threads of the rain that fell within its radiance, and fling two
shafts of warm yellow over the coping of the back wall into the night.
During the minute or more that I stood watching, no shadow fell on
either blind.

Between me and the wall ran a ditch, into the black obscurity of which
the ground at my feet broke sharply away. Setting my back to the storm
again, I followed the lip of this ditch around the wall's angle. Here
was shelter, and here the ditch seemed to grow shallower. Not wishing,
however, to mistake a bed of nettles or any such pitfall for solid
earth, I kept pretty wide as I went on. The house was dark on this
side, and the wall, as before, had no opening. Close beside the next
angle grew a mass of thick gorse bushes, and pushing through these I
found myself suddenly on a sound high road, with the wind tearing at
me as furiously as ever.

But here was the front; and I now perceived that the surrounding wall
advanced some way before the house, so as to form a narrow curtilage.
So much of it, too, as faced the road had been whitewashed; which made
it an easy matter to find the gate. But as I laid hand on its latch, I
had a surprise.

A line of paving-stones led from the gate to the heavy porch; and
along the wet surface of these fell a streak of light from the front
door, which stood ajar.

That a door should remain six inches open on such a night was
astonishing enough, until I entered the court and found it was as
still as a room, owing to the high wall, and doubtless the porch gave
additional protection. But looking up and assuring myself that all the
rest of _facade_ was black as ink, I wondered at the inmates who could
be t