he outer ward was
visible, a great part of it being laid out as a flower-garden. This was
in process of clearing from weeds and rubbish by a set of gardeners, and
the soil was so encumbered that in rooting out the weeds such few hardy
flowers as still remained in the beds were mostly brought up with them.
The groove wherein the portcullis had run was as fresh as if only cut
yesterday, the very tooling of the stone being visible. Close to this
hung a bell-pull formed of a large wooden acorn attached to a vertical
rod. Somerset's application brought a woman from the porter's door, who
informed him that the day before having been the weekly show-day for
visitors, it was doubtful if he could be admitted now.

'Who is at home?' said Somerset.

'Only Miss de Stancy,' the porteress replied.

His dread of being considered an intruder was such that he thought at
first there was no help for it but to wait till the next week. But
he had already through his want of effrontery lost a sight of many
interiors, whose exhibition would have been rather a satisfaction to the
inmates than a trouble. It was inconvenient to wait; he knew nobody
in the neighbourhood from whom he could get an introductory letter: he
turned and passed the woman, crossed the ward where the gardeners were
at work, over a second and smaller bridge, and up a flight of stone
stairs, open to the sky, along whose steps sunburnt Tudor soldiers and
other renowned dead men had doubtless many times walked. It led to the
principal door on this side. Thence he could observe the walls of
the lower court in detail, and the old mosses with which they were
padded--mosses that from time immemorial had been burnt brown every
summer, and every winter had grown green again. The arrow-slit and the
electric wire that entered it, like a worm uneasy at being unearthed,
were distinctly visible now. So also was the clock, not, as he had
supposed, a chronometer coeval with the fortress itself, but new and
shining, and bearing the name of a recent maker.

The door was opened by a bland, intensely shaven man out of livery,
who took Somerset's name and politely worded request to be allowed to
inspect the architecture of the more public portions of the castle. He
pronounced the word 'architecture' in the tone of a man who knew and
practised that art; 'for,' he said to himself, 'if she thinks I am a
mere idle tourist, it will not be so well.'

No such uncomfortable consequences ensued. Mi