The pony approached the door of a large house, dim to the sight; its huge pointed tin roof, its stone sides, mantled as they were with snowflakes and fringed with icicles at eaves and lintels, hardly gave a dark outline in the glimmering storm.

The rays of light which twinkled through chinks of shutters might be analogous to the stars produced by a stunned brain; it seemed to the Englishman that if he went up and tried to knock on the door the ghostly house, the ghostly poplar avenue, would vanish.

The thought was born of the long monotony of a danger which had called for no activity of brain or muscle on his part.

The pony knew better; it stopped before the door.
The traveller stood in a small porch raised a step or two from the ground.

The door was opened by a middle-aged Frenchwoman clad in a peasant's gown of bluish-grey.