far to the west of where they had entered the
grounds that afternoon, they paused in the middle of Castle Avenue, near
the main gate, and looked down the dark, deserted street, Far away could
be seen the faint glare from their hotel; one or two street-lamps burned
in the business part of the city; aside from these evidences of life
there was nothing but darkness, silence, peacefulness about them
everywhere.

"Think of Paris or New York at eleven o'clock," said Lorry, a trifle
awed by the solitude of the sleeping city.

"It's as dead as a piece of prairie-land," said his friend. "'Gad, it
makes me sleepy to look down that street. It's a mile to the hotel, too,
Lorry. We'd better move along."

"Let's lie down near the hedge, smoke another cigar and wait till
midnight. It is too glorious a night to be lost in sleep," urged Lorry,
whose heart was light over the joys of the day to come. "I can dream
just as well here, looking at that dark old castle with its one little
tower-light, as I could if I tried to sleep in a hard bed down at the
hotel."

Anguish, who was more or less of a dreamer himself, consented, and,
after lighting fresh cigars, they threw themselves on the soft, dry
grass near the tall hedge that fenced the avenue as it neared the castle
grounds. For half an hour they talked by fits and starts; long silences
were common, broken only by brief phrases which seemed so to disturb the
one to whom they were addressed that he answered gruffly and not at
all politely. Their cigars, burnt to mere stubs, were thrown away,
and still the waking dreamers stretched themselves in the almost
impenetrable shade of the hedge, one thinking of the face he had seen,
the other picturing in his artist eye the painting he had vowed to
create from the moon-lit castle of an hour ago.

"Some one coming," murmured the painter, half rising to his elbow
attentively.

"Soldiers," said the other briefly. "They'll not disturb us."

"They'll not even see us, I should say. It's as dark as Egypt under this
hedge. They'll pass if we keep quiet."

The figures of two men could be seen approaching from the city, dim
and ghostly in the semi-blackness of the night. Like two thieves the
Americans waited for them to pass. To their exceeding discomfiture,
however, the pedestrians halted directly in front of their resting
place and seated themselves leisurely upon a broad, flat stone at the
roadside. It was too dark to see if they were soldiers,