A dim light struggled through the casement of a window in a tower room.

Save for the melancholy cry of a row of owls sitting on the roof, and croaking of the frogs in the moat which ran around the grounds, the place was soundless.

My driver halted his horse at the hither side of the moat.

I tried in vain to urge him, by signs, to go further.

I could see by the fellow's face that he was in a paroxysm of fear, and indeed nothing but the extra sixpence which I had added to his fare would have made him undertake the drive up the avenue.