About half a mile away the lights of a large village were visible, but bits of walls and gable ends of white houses stood out brighter in the moonlight than, the yellow lights within the windows.
Where the houses stretched themselves up on a low hill, a little white church showed clear against the broken shadow of low-growing pines.
As Trenholme was surveying the place dreamily in the wonderful light, that light fell also, upon him and his habitation.

He was apparently intellectual, and had in him something of the idealist.

For the rest, he was a good-sized, good-looking man, between thirty and forty years of age, and even by the moonlight one might see, from the form of his clothes, that he was dressed with fastidious care.

The walls and verandah, of his house, which were of wood, glistened almost as brightly with white paint as the knocker and doorplate did with brass lacquer.
After a few minutes Trenholme's housekeeper, a wiry, sad-eyed woman, came to see why the door was left open.

When she saw the master of the house she retired in abrupt, angular fashion, but the suggestion of her errand recalled him from his brief relaxation.
In his study he again sat down before the table where he had been talking to his visitors.