solitary chamber. As soon as he had fortified himself by food and drink,
Jasper rose, paid for his refreshments and walked forth. Noiseless and
rapid, skirting the hedgerows by the lane that led to Fawley, and
scarcely distinguishable under their shadow, the human wild-beast strided
on in scent of its quarry. It was night when Jasper once more reached
the moss-grown pales round the demesnes of the old Manor-house. In a few
minutes he was standing under the black shadow of the buttresses to the
unfinished pile. His object was not, then, to assault, but to
reconnoitre. He prowled round the irregular walls, guided in his survey,
now and then, faintly by the stars--more constantly and clearly by the
lights from the contiguous Manor-house--especially the light from that
high chamber in the gable, close by which ran the thin framework of wood
which linked the two buildings of stone, just as any frail scheme links
together the Past which man has not enjoyed, with the Future he will not
complete. Jasper came to a large bay unglazed window, its sill but a few
feet from the ground, from which the boards, nailed across the mullions,
had been removed by the workmen whom Darrell had employed on the
interior, and were replaced but by a loose tarpaulin. Pulling aside this
slight obstacle, Jasper had no difficulty in entering through the wide
mullions into the dreary edifice. Finding himself in profound darkness,
he had recourse to a lucifer-box which he had about him, and the waste of
a dozen matches sufficed him to examine the ground. He was in a space
intended by the architect for the principal staircase; a tall ladder,
used by the recent workmen, was still left standing against the wall, the
top of it resting on a landing-place opposite a doorway, that, from the
richness of its half-finished architrave, obviously led to what had been
designed for the state apartments; between the pediments was a slight
temporary door of rough deal planks. Satisfied with his reconnoitre,
Losely quitted the skeleton pile, and retraced his steps to the inn he
had left. His musings by the way suggested to him the expediency, nay,