faint
light on the ceiling, and, assisted by the dark lantern-like glow
cast on the opposite wall by the tunnel of the embrasured window,
the familiar outlines of the room and its furniture came back to him.
Somewhat in this fashion also, in the obscurity and quiet, came back
to him the events he had overlooked and forgotten. He recalled now some
gossip of the servants, and hints dropped by Susy of a violent quarrel
between Peyton and Pedro, which resulted in Pedro's dismissal, but which
now seemed clearly attributable to some graver cause than inattention
and insolence. He recalled Mary Rogers's playful pleasantries with Susy
about Pedro, and Susy's mysterious air, which he had hitherto
regarded only as part of her exaggeration. He remembered Mrs. Peyton's
unwarrantable uneasiness about Susy, which he had either overlooked or
referred entirely to himself; she must have suspected something. To his
quickened imagination, in this ruin of his faith and trust, he believed
that Hooker's defection was either part of the conspiracy, or that he
had run away to avoid being implicated with Susy in its discovery.
This, too, was the significance of Gilroy's parting warning. He and
Mrs. Peyton alone had been blind and confiding in the midst of this
treachery, and even HE had been blind to his own real affections.

The wind had risen again, and the faint light on the opposite wall grew
tremulous and shifting with the movement of the foliage without. But
presently the glow became quite obliterated, as if by the intervention
of some opaque body outside the window. He rose hurriedly and went to
the casement. But at the same moment he fancied he heard the jamming of
a door or window in quite another direction, and his examination of
the casement before him showed him only the silver light of the thinly
clouded sky falling uninterruptedly through the bars and foliage on the
interior of the whitewashed embrasure. Then a conception of his mistake
flashed across him. The line of the casa was long, straggling, and
exposed elsewhere; why should the attempt to enter or communicate
with any one within be confined only to this single point? And why not
satisfy himself at once if any trespassers were lounging around the
walls, and then confront them boldly in the open? Their discovery and
identification was as important as the defeat of their intentions.

He relit the candle, and, placing it on a small table by the wall beyond
the visual range o