grandfather's clock and constantly seeing in my mind's eye that
deserted supper-room at the Red House.

And presently as I lay thus, I became aware of two things: first of
the howling of dogs, and, second, of a sort of muttered conversation
which seemed to be taking place somewhere near me. Listening intently,
I thought I could distinguish the voice of a man and that of a woman.
Possibly I was not the only wakeful inhabitant of the Abbey Inn was my
first and most natural idea; but it presently became apparent to me
that the speakers were not in the inn, but outside in the road.

Curiosity at last overcame inclination. Of the exact time I was not
aware, but I think dawn could not have been far off, and I naturally
wondered who these might be that conversed beneath my window at such
an hour. I rose quietly and crept across the room, endeavoring to
avoid showing my head in the moonlight. By the exercise of a little
ingenuity I obtained a view of the road before the inn doors.

At first I was unable to make out from whence this muttered
conversation arose, until fixing my attention upon a patch of shadow
underlying a tall tree which stood almost immediately opposite the
window, I presently made out two figures there. Somewhere, a dog was
howling mournfully.

For a long time I failed to distinguish any more than indefinite
outlines, nor, throughout the murmured colloquy, did I once detect
even so much as a phrase. The night remained perfect and the moon
possessed a tropical brilliance, casting deep and sharply defined
shadows, and lending to the whole visible landscape a quality of
hardness which for some obscure reason set me thinking of a painting