le, he cast a parting glance all round the room, and was then
about to leave it, when the drawing of the old five-barred gate, which
he had taken down for Mat to look at, and had placed on a painting-stand
at the lower end of the studio, caught his eye. He advanced towards
it directly--stopped half-way--hesitated--yawned--shivered a
little--thought to himself that it was not worth while to trouble about
hanging the drawing up over the garden door, that night--and so, yawning
again, turned on his heel and left the studio.

Mr. Blyth's two servants slept up-stairs. About ten minutes after their
master had ascended to his bed-room, they left the kitchen for their
dormitory on the garret floor. Patty, the housemaid, stopped as she
passed the painting room, to look in, and see that the lights were
out, and the fire safe for the night. Polly, the cook, went on with
the bedroom candle; and, after having ascended the stairs as far as the
first landing from the hall, discreetly bethought herself of the
garden door, the general care and superintendence of which was properly
attached to her department in the household.

"I say, did you lock the garden door?" said Polly to Patty through the
banisters.

"Yes; I did it when I took up master's tea," said Patty to Polly,
appearing lazily in the hall, after one sleepy look round the
fast-darkening studio.

"Hadn't you better see to it again, to make sure?" suggested the
cautious cook.

"Hadn't _you?_ It's _your_ place," retorted the careless house-maid.

"Hush!" whispered Valentine, suddenly appearing on the landing above
Polly, from his bedroom, arrayed in his flannel dressing-gown and
nightcap. "Don't talk here, or you'll disturb your mistress. Go up to
bed, and talk there. Good night."

"Good night, sir," answered together the two faithful female dependents
of the house of Blyth, obeying their master's order with simpering
docility, and deferring to a future opportunity all further
considerations connected with the garden door.

The fire was fading out fast in the studio grate. Now and then, at
long intervals, a thin tongue of flame leapt up faintly against the
ever-invading gloom, flickered for an instant over the brighter and more
prominent objects in the room, then dropped back again into darkness.
The profound silence was only interrupted by those weird house-noises
which live in the death of night and die in the life of day; by that
sudden crackling in the wall, by t