g from a window, and plucked up courage at the sight of
this desistance; or perhaps, where he lurked trembling in the back parts
of the villa, reason in its own right had conquered his alarms.
Challoner, at least, had scarce set foot upon the pavement when he was
arrested by the sound of the withdrawal of an inner bolt; one followed
another, rattling in their sockets; the key turned harshly in the lock;
the door opened; and there appeared upon the threshold a man of a very
stalwart figure in his shirt sleeves. He was a person neither of great
manly beauty nor of a refined exterior; he was not the man, in ordinary
moods, to attract the eyes of the observer; but as he now stood in the
doorway he was marked so legibly with the extreme passion of terror that
Challoner stood wonder-struck. For a fraction of a minute they gazed
upon each other in silence; and then the man of the house, with ashen
lips and gasping voice, inquired the business of his visitor. Challoner
replied, in tones from which he strove to banish his surprise, that he
was the bearer of a letter to a certain Miss Fonblanque. At this name,
as at a talisman, the man fell back and impatiently invited him to
enter; and no sooner had the adventurer crossed the threshold than the
door was closed behind him and his retreat cut off.

It was already long past eight at night; and though the late twilight of
the north still lingered in the streets, in the passage it was already
groping dark. The man led Challoner directly to a parlour looking on
the garden to the back. Here he had apparently been supping; for by the
light of a tallow dip, the table was seen to be covered with a napkin,
and set out with a quart of bottled ale and the heel of a Gouda cheese.
The room, on the other hand, was furnished with faded solidity, and the
walls were lined with scholarly and costly volumes in glazed cases. The
house must have been taken furnished; for it had no congruity with this
man of the shirt sleeves and the mean supper. As for the earl's
daughter, the earl and the visionary consulships in foreign cities, they
had long ago begun to fade in Challoner's imagination. Like Dr. Grierson
and the Mormon angels, they were plainly woven of the stuff of dreams.
Not an illusion remained to the knight-errant; not a hope was left him
but to be speedily relieved from this disreputable business.

The man had continued to regard his visitor with undisguised anxiety,
and began once more to pre