The kitchen, store-room, and servants’ rooms were on this lower stage, and opened upon the road; an outer stairway ran up to the centre door at the back, but at the east and west flanks of the house the stone walls stood without port or window except those above the eaves,—­the dormers.  Light and air in abundance streamed through the broad Venetian windows north and south when light and air were needed.  This night, as usual, all was tightly closed below, all darkness aloft as he glanced up at the dormers high above his head.  As he did so, his foot struck a sudden and sturdy obstacle; he stumbled and pitched heavily forward, and found himself sprawling at full length upon a ladder lying on the ground almost in the middle of the roadway.

“Damn those painters!” he growled between his set teeth.  “They leave their infernal man-traps around in the very hope of catching me, I believe.  Now, who but a painter would have left a ladder in such a place as this?”

Rising ruefully and rubbing a bruised knee with his hand, he limped painfully ahead a few steps, until he came to the side-wall of the colonel’s house.  Here a plank walk passed from the roadway along the western wall until almost on a line with the front piazza, where by a flight of steps it was carried up to the level of the parade.  Here he paused a moment to dust off his clothes and rearrange his belt and sword.  He stood leaning against the wall and facing the gray stone gable end of the row of old-fashioned quarters that bounded the parade upon the southwest.  All was still darkness and silence.

“Confound this sword!” he muttered again:  “the thing made rattle and racket enough to wake the dead.  Wonder if I disturbed anybody at the colonel’s.”

As though in answer to his suggestion, there suddenly appeared, high on the blank wall before him, the reflection of a faint light.  Had a little night-lamp been turned on in the front room of the upper story?  The gleam came from the north window on the side:  he saw plainly the shadow of the pretty lace curtains, looped loosely back.  Then the shade was gently raised, and there was for an instant the silhouette of a slender hand and wrist, the shadow of a lace-bordered sleeve.  Then the light receded, as though carried back across the room, waned, as though slowly extinguished, and the last shadows showed the curtains still looped back, the rolling shade still raised.

“I thought so,” he growled.  “One tumble like that is enough to wake the Seven Sleepers, let alone a love-sick girl who is probably dreaming over Jerrold’s parting words.  She is spirited and blue-blooded enough to have more sense, too, that same superb brunette.  Ah, Miss Alice, I wonder if you think that fellow’s love worth having.  It is two hours since he left you,—­more than that,—­and here you are awake yet,—­cannot sleep,—­want more air, and have to come and raise your shade.  No such warm night, either.”  These were his reflections as he picked up his offending