Clementina

It was still night when Wogan opened his eyes, but the night was now

clear of mist. There was no moon, however, to give him a guess at the

hour. He lay upon his back among the dead leaves, and looking upwards at

the stars, caught as it seemed in a lattice-work of branches, floated

back into consciousness. He moved, and the movement turned him sick with

pain. The knowledge of his wounds came to him and brought with it a

clear recollection of the last three nights. The ever-widening black

strip in the door on the first night, the clutch at his throat and the

leap from the cupboard on the second, the silent watching of those five

pairs of eyes on the third, and the lackey with the knife in his breast

hopping with both feet horribly across the floor,--the horror of these

recollections swept in upon him and changed him from a man into a

timorous child. He lay and shuddered until in every creak of the

branches he heard the whisper of an enemy, in every flutter of leaves

across the lawn a stealthy footstep, and behind every tree-stem he

caught the flap of a cloak.

Stiff and sore, he raised himself from the ground, he groped for his

boots and coat, and putting them on moved cautiously through the trees,

supporting himself from stem to stem. He came to the borders of a wide,

smooth lawn, and on the farther side stood the house,--a long,

two-storeyed house with level tiers of windows stretching to the right

and the left, and a bowed tower in the middle. Through one of the

windows in the ground-floor Wogan saw the spark of a lamp, and about

that window a fan of yellow light was spread upon the lawn.

Wogan at this moment felt in great need of companionship. He stole

across the lawn and looked into the room. An old gentleman with a

delicate face, who wore his own white hair, was bending over a book at a

desk. The room was warmly furnished, the door of the stove stood open,

and Wogan could see the logs blazing merrily. A chill wind swept across

the lawn, very drear and ghostly. Wogan crept closer to the window. A

great boar-hound rose at the old man's feet and growled; then the old

man rose, and crossing to the window pressed his face against the panes

with his hands curved about his eyes. Wogan stepped forward and stood

within the fan of light, spreading out his arms to show that he came as

a supplicant and with no ill intent.