about the
windows; a woman's cloak, of an antiquated fashion, drooped from a nail
behind the door. In an oak chest we found a tumbled heap of yellow
letters. They were of various dates, extending over a period of four
months; and with them, apparently intended to receive them, lay a large
envelope, inscribed with an address in London that has since disappeared.

Strong curiosity overcoming faint scruples, we read them by the dull glow
of the burning juniper twigs, and, as we lay aside the last of them,
there rose from the depths below us a wailing cry, and all night long it
rose and died away, and rose again, and died away again; whether born of
our brain or of some human thing, God knows.

And these, a little altered and shortened, are the letters:--

_Extract from first letter_:

"I cannot tell you, my dear Joyce, what a haven of peace this place is
to me after the racket and fret of town. I am almost quite recovered
already, and am growing stronger every day; and, joy of joys, my brain
has come back to me, fresher and more vigorous, I think, for its
holiday. In this silence and solitude my thoughts flow freely, and
the difficulties of my task are disappearing as if by magic. We are
perched upon a tiny plateau halfway up the mountain. On one side the
rock rises almost perpendicularly, piercing the sky; while on the
other, two thousand feet below us, the torrent hurls itself into the
black waters of the fiord. The house consists of two rooms--or,
rather, it is two cabins connected by a passage. The larger one we
use as a living room, and the other is our sleeping apartment. We
have no servant, but do everything for ourselves. I fear sometimes
Muriel must find it lonely. The nearest human habitation is eight
miles away, across the mountain, and not a soul comes near us. I
spend as much time as I can with her, however, during the day, and
make up for it by working at night after she has gone to sleep; and
when I question her, she only laughs, and answers that she loves to
have me all to herself. (Here you will smile cynically, I know, and
say, 'Humph, I wonder will she say the same when they have been
married six years instead of six months.') At the rate I am working
now I shall have finished my first volume by the spring, and then, my
dear fellow, you must try and come over, and we will walk and talk
together 'amid these storm-rea