sudden grasping of the rough stones, and sat astride on the wall.

He parted the leafy boughs and looked down; below him lay the stones
that had fallen from the wall--already grass was growing upon the mound
they made. As he ventured his head beyond the green leafage, the level
light of the sinking sun struck him in the eyes. It was like a blow. He
dropped softly from the wall and stood in the shadow of the
tree--looking, listening.

Before him stretched the park--wide and still; dotted here and there
with trees, and overlaid with gold poured from the west. He held his
breath and listened. There was no wind to stir the leaves to those
rustlings which may deceive and disconcert the keenest and the boldest;
only the sleepy twitter of birds, and the little sudden soft movements
of them in the dusky privacy of the thick-leaved branches. There was in
all the broad park no sign of any other living thing.

The thief trod softly along under the wall where the trees were
thickest, and at every step he paused to look and listen.

It was quite suddenly that he came upon the little lodge near the great
gates of wrought iron with the marble gate-posts bearing upon them the
two gaunt griffins, the cognisance of the noble house whose lands these
were. The thief drew back into the shadow and stood still, only his
heart beat thickly. He stood still as the tree trunk beside him,
looking, listening. He told himself that he heard nothing--saw
nothing--yet he became aware of things. That the door of the lodge was
not closed, that some of its windows were broken, and that into its
little garden straw and litter had drifted from the open door: and that
between the stone step and the threshold grass was growing inches high.
When he was aware of this he stepped forward and entered the lodge. All
the sordid sadness of a little deserted home met him here--broken crocks
and bent pans, straw, old rags, and a brooding, dusty stillness.

"There has been no one here since the old keeper died. They told the
truth," said the thief; and he made haste to leave the lodge, for there
was nothing in it now that any man need covet--only desolation and the
memory of death.

So he went slowly among the trees, and by devious ways drew a little
nearer to the great house that stood in its walled garden in the middle
of the park. From very far off, above the green wave of trees that broke
round it, he could see the towers of it rising black against the sunset;