int terminal touch, resembling exactly a 'There!' at the
close of a voluble delivery in the negative. Absolutely empty. He pulled
and pulled. The bell wagged, wagged. This had been a house of a witty
host, a merry girl, junketting guests; a house of hilarious thunders,
lightnings of fun and fancy. Death never seemed more voiceful than in
that wagging of the bell.

For conscience' sake, as became a trusty emissary, he walked round to the
back of the house, to verify the total emptiness. His apprehensive
despondency had said that it was absolutely empty, but upon consideration
he supposed the house must have some guardian: likely enough, an old
gardener and his wife, lost in deafness double-shotted by sleep! There
was no sign of them. The night air waxed sensibly crisper. He thumped the
backdoors. Blank hollowness retorted on the blow. He banged and kicked.
The violent altercation with wood and wall lasted several minutes, ending
as it had begun.

Flesh may worry, but is sure to be worsted in such an argument.

'Well, my dear lady!'--Redworth addressed Lady Dunstane aloud, while
driving his hands into his pockets for warmth--'we've done what we could.
The next best thing is to go to bed and see what morning brings us.'

The temptation to glance at the wild divinings of dreamy-witted women
from the point of view of the practical man, was aided by the intense
frigidity of the atmosphere in leading him to criticize a sex not much
used to the exercise of brains. 'And they hate railways!' He associated
them, in the matter of intelligence, with Andrew Hedger and Company. They
sank to the level of the temperature in his esteem--as regarded their
intellects. He approved their warmth of heart. The nipping of the
victim's toes and finger-tips testified powerfully to that.

Round to the front of the house at a trot, he stood in moonlight. Then,
for involuntarily he now did everything running, with a dash up the steps
he seized the sullen pendant bell-handle, and worked it pumpwise, till he
perceived a smaller bell-knob beside the door, at which he worked
piston-wise. Pump and piston, the hurly-burly and the tinkler created an
alarm to scare cat and mouse and Cardinal spider, all that run or weave
in desolate houses, with the good result of a certain degree of heat to
his frame. He ceased, panting. No stir within, nor light. That white
stare of windows at the moon was undisturbed.

The Downs were like a wavy robe of shadowy grey