es; past
the stables; past a line of summer cottages, strangely staring of aspect
out of the yawning doors and windows, giving, instead of an impression
of vacancy, a sense of covert watching, of secret occupancy. If one's
glances were only quick enough, were there not faces pressed to those
shattered panes--scarcely seen--swiftly withdrawn?

He was in a desert; he had hardly been so utterly alone in all his life;
yet he bore through the empty place a feeling of espionage, and ever
and anon he glanced keenly at the overgrown lawns, with their deepening
drifts of autumn leaves, at the staring windows and flaring doors, which
emitted sometimes sudden creaking wails in the silence, as if he sought
to assure himself of the vacancy of which his mind took cognizance and
yet all his senses denied.

Little of his sentiment, although sedulously cloaked, was lost on Sim
Roxby; and he was aware, too, in some subtle way, of the relief his
guest experienced when they plunged into the darkening forest and left
the forlorn place behind them. The clearing in which it was situated
seemed an oasis of light in the desert of night in which the rest of
the world lay. From the obscurity of the forest Dundas saw, through the
vistas of the giant trees, the clustering cottages, the great hotel,
gables and chimneys and tower, stark and distinct as in some weird
dream-light in the midst of the encircling gloom. The after-glow of
sunset was still aflare on the western windows; the whole empty place
was alight with a reminiscence of its old aspect--its old gay life. Who
knows what memories were a-stalk there--what semblance of former times?
What might not the darkness foster, the impunity of desertion, the
associations that inhabited the place with almost the strength of human
occupancy itself? Who knows--who knows?

He remembered the scene afterward, the impression he received. And from
this, he thought, arose his regret for his decision to take up here his
abiding-place.

The forest shut out the illumined landscape, and the night seemed indeed
at hand; the gigantic boles of the trees loomed through the encompassing
gloom, that was yet a semi-transparent medium, like some dark but clear
fluid through which objects were dimly visible, albeit tinged with its
own sombre hue. The lank, rawboned sorrel had set a sharp pace, to
which the chestnut, after momentary lagging, as if weary with the day's
travel, responded briskly. He had received in some