instead of listening to good advice from one so much older than me, I set to work to talk him over, and persuaded him that if we got the diamond again, and ever could sell it, we would give the money to build up the Mohune almshouses, knowing well in my heart that I never meant to do any such thing.  Thus at the last Elzevir, who was the stubbornest of men, and never yielded, was overborne by his great love to me, and yielded here.

It was ten o’clock before we set out together, to go again to Aldobrand’s, meaning to climb the garden wall and get the stone.  I walked quickly enough, and talked all the time to silence my own misgivings, but Elzevir hung back a little and said nothing, for it was sorely against his judgement that he came at all.  But as we neared the place I ceased my chatter, and so we went on in silence, each busy with his own thoughts, We did not come in front of Aldobrand’s house, but turned out of the main street down a side lane which we guessed would skirt the garden wall.  There were few people moving even in the streets, and in this little lane there was not a soul to meet as we crept along in the shadow of the high walls.  We were not mistaken, for soon we came to what we judged was the outside of Aldobrand’s garden.

Here we paused for a minute, and I believe Elzevir was for making a last remonstrance, but I gave him no chance, for I had found a place where some bricks were loosened in the wall-face, and set myself to climb.  It was easy enough to scale for us, and in a minute we both dropped down in a bed of soft mould on the other side.  We pushed through some gooseberry-bushes that caught the clothes, and distinguishing the outline of the house, made that way, till in a few steps we stood on the Pelouse or turf, which I had seen from the balcony three hours before.  I knew the twirl of the walks, and the pattern of the beds; the rank of hollyhocks that stood up all along the wall, and the poppies breathing out a faint sickly odour in the night.  An utter silence held all the garden, and, the night being very clear, there was still enough light to show the colours of the flowers when one looked close at them, though the green of the leaves was turned to grey.  We kept in the shadow of the wall, and looked expectantly at the house.  But no murmur came from it, it might have been a house of the dead for any noise the living made there; nor was there light in any window, except in one behind the balcony, to which our eyes were turned first.  In that room there was someone not yet gone to rest, for we could see a lattice of light where a lamp shone through the open work of the wooden blinds.

‘He is up still,’ I whispered, ‘and the outside shutters are not closed.’  Elzevir nodded, and then I made straight for the bed where the red flower grew.  I had no need of any light to see the bells of that great rushy thing, for it was different from any of the rest, and besides that was planted by itself.