well after my night's experience
of it, and inferred the breakfast-room without any difficulty. But when I
reached the door I stood and listened in considerable astonishment.
Luckily, I was not tempted to make the jaunty entrance my mood prompted. I
had not seen a soul as I had made my way from my room in the north wing
down into the Hall. The place seemed to be absolutely deserted. And, now,
in the breakfast-room an almost breathless silence was broken only by the
slow grumbling of one monotonous voice, undulating about the limited range
of a minor third, and proceeding with the steady fluency of a lunatic's
muttering. I suppose I ought to have guessed the reasonable origin of
those sounds, but I didn't, not even when the muttering fell to a pause
and was succeeded by a subdued chorus, that conveyed the effect of a score
of people giving a concerted but strongly-repressed groan. After that the
first voice began again, but this time it was not allowed to mumble
unsupported. A murmured chant followed and caricatured it, repeating as
far as I could make out the same sequence of sounds. They began "Ah! Fah!
Chah! Hen...." That continued for something like a minute before it came
to a ragged close with another groan. Then for a few seconds the original
voice continued its grumbling, and was followed by an immense quiet.

I stared through the open door of the Hall at the gay world of colour
outside and wondered if I was under the thrall of some queer illusion. But
as I moved towards the garden with a vague idea of regaining my sanity in
the open air, the silence in the breakfast-room was broken by the sigh of
a general movement, the door was opened from within, and there poured out
a long procession of servants: a grave woman in black, a bevy of
print-gowned maids, and finally John--all of them looking staid and a
trifle melancholy, they made their way with a kind of hushed timidity
towards the red-baized entrance that led to the freedoms of their proper
condition.

Within the breakfast-room a low chatter of voices was slowly rising to the
level of ordinary conversation.

My entrance was anything but jaunty. This was the first intimation I had
received of the Jervaises' piety; and my recognition of the ceremonial of
family worship to which I had so unintuitively listened, had evoked long
undisturbed memories of my boyhood. As I entered the breakfast-room, I
could not for the life of me avoid a feeling of self-reproach. I ha