my indiscretions and my incivilities, one
and all the result of his wine and my weakness, and this new predicament
(another and yet more vulgar result) was the final mortification. I
swore aloud. I simply could not see a foot in front of my face. Once I
proved it by running my head hard against a branch. I was hopelessly and
ridiculously lost within a hundred yards of the hall!

Some minutes I floundered, ashamed to go back, unable to proceed for
the trees and the darkness. I heard the heck running over its stones. I
could still see an occasional glimmer from the windows I had left. But
the light was now on this side, now on that; the running water chuckled
in one ear after the other; there was nothing for it but to return in
all humility for the lantern which I had been so foolish as to refuse.

And as I resigned myself to this imperative though inglorious course, my
heart warmed once more to the jovial young squire. He would laugh, but
not unkindly, at my grotesque dilemma; at the thought of his laughter I
began to smile myself. If he gave me another chance I would smoke that
cigar with him before starting home afresh, and remove, front my own
mind no less than from his, all ill impressions. After all it was not
his fault that I had taken too much of his wine; but a far worse offence
was to be sulky in one s cups. I would show him that I was myself again
in all respects. I have admitted that I was temporarily, at all events,
a creature of extreme moods. It was in this one that I retraced my steps
towards the lights, and at length let myself into the garden by the
postern at which I had shaken Rattray's hand not ten minutes before.

Taking heart of grace, I stepped up jauntily to the porch. The weeds
muffled my steps. I myself had never thought of doing so, when all at
once I halted in a vague terror. Through the deep lattice windows I
had seen into the lighted hall. And Rattray was once more seated at his
table, a little company of men around him.

I crept nearer, and my heart stopped. Was I delirious, or raving mad
with wine? Or had the sea given up its dead?

CHAPTER XI. I LIVE AGAIN

Squire Rattray, as I say, was seated at the head of his table, where
the broken meats still lay as he and I had left them; his fingers, I
remember, were playing with a crust, and his eyes fixed upon a distant
door, as he leant back in his chair. Behind him hovered the nigger of
the Lady Jermyn, whom I had been the slower t