The high blank wall of a garden rose on one side of it, on the other the still higher wall of a house; and both were completely devoid of windows, a feature which I recognised with the utmost dismay.

For it completely upset all my calculations.

In vain I measured with my eye the ten paces I had come; in vain I looked up, looked this way and that.

I was nonplussed.

No window opened on the lane at that point, nor, indeed, throughout its length.