How I Had Word With the Lady Joan Brandon for the Third Time

The moon was well up when, striking out from the gloom of the woods, I reached a wall very high and strong, whereon moss and lichens grew; skirting this, I presently espied that I sought--a place where the coping was gone with sundry of the bricks, making here a gap very apt to escalade; and here, years agone, I had been wont to climb this wall to the furtherance of some boyish prank on many a night such as this. Awhile stood I staring up at this gap, then, seizing hold of massy brickwork, I drew myself up and dropped into a walled garden. Here were beds of herbs well tended and orderly, and, as I went, I breathed an air sweet with the smell of thyme and lavender and a thousand other scents, an air fraught with memories of sunny days and joyous youth, insomuch that I clenched my hands and hasted from the place. Past sombre trees, mighty of girth and branch, I hurried; past still pools, full of a moony radiance, where lilies floated; past marble fauns and dryads that peeped ghost-like from leafy solitudes; past sundial and carven bench, by clipped yew-hedges and winding walks until, screened in shadow, I paused to look upon a great and goodly house; and as I stood there viewing it over from terrace-walk to gabled roof, I heard a distant clock chime ten.

The great house lay very silent and dark, not a light showed save in one lower chamber. So I waited patiently, my gaze on this light, while, ever and anon, the leaves about me stirred in the soft night-wind with a sound like one that sighed mournfully.