no
shelter; he desired no subdued sounds or screened position.

"All the parlours are empty," said he. "I am sick at heart of this
cell."

He left it, and went where the casements, larger and freer than the
branch-screened lattice of his own apartment, admitted unimpeded the
dark-blue, the silver-fleeced, the stirring and sweeping vision of the
autumn night-sky. He carried no candle; unneeded was lamp or fire. The
broad and clear though cloud-crossed and fluctuating beam of the moon
shone on every floor and wall.

Moore wanders through all the rooms. He seems following a phantom from
parlour to parlour. In the oak room he stops. This is not chill, and
polished, and fireless like the _salon_. The hearth is hot and ruddy;
the cinders tinkle in the intense heat of their clear glow; near the rug
is a little work-table, a desk upon it, a chair near it.

Does the vision Moore has tracked occupy that chair? You would think so,
could you see him standing before it. There is as much interest now in
his eye, and as much significance in his face, as if in this household
solitude he had found a living companion, and was going to speak to it.

He makes discoveries. A bag--a small satin bag--hangs on the chair-back.
The desk is open, the keys are in the lock. A pretty seal, a silver pen,
a crimson berry or two of ripe fruit on a green leaf, a small, clean,
delicate glove--these trifles at once decorate and disarrange the stand
they strew. Order forbids details in a picture--she puts them tidily
away; but details give charm.

Moore spoke.

"Her mark," he said. "Here she has been--careless, attractive
thing!--called away in haste, doubtless, and forgetting to return and
put all to rights. Why does she leave fascination in her footprints?
Whence did she acquire the gift to be heedless and never offend? There
is always something to chide in her, and the reprimand never settles in
displeasure on the heart, but, for her lover or her husband, when it had
trickled a while in words, would naturally melt from his lips in a kiss.
Better pass half an hour in remonstrating with her than a day in
admiring or praising any other woman alive. Am I muttering?
soliloquizing? Stop that."

He did stop it. He stood thinking, and then he made an arrangement for
his evening's comfort.

He dropped the curtains over the broad window and regal moon. He shut
out sovereign and court and starry armies; he added fuel to the hot but
fast-wasting fire;