for a few moments in front of the curtained window.  He was a man of somewhat determined disposition, and he found himself vaguely irritated by the liberties which had been taken with his property.  He hammered gently upon the framework with his fist, and the windows opened readily inwards, pushing back the curtain with them.  He drew himself up on to the sill, and, squeezing himself through the opening, landed on his feet and looked around him, a little breathless.

He found himself in a simply furnished man’s sitting-room.  An easel was standing close to the window.  There were reams of drawing paper and several unfinished sketches leaning against the wall.  There was a small oak table in the middle of the room; against the wall stood an exquisite chiffonier, on which were resting some cut-glass decanters and goblets.  There was a Turkey carpet upon the floor which matched the curtains, but to his surprise there was not a single chair of any sort to be seen.  The walls had been distempered and were hung with one or two engravings which, although he was no judge, he was quite sure were good.  He wandered into the back room, where he found a stove, a tea-service upon a deal table, and several other cooking utensils, all spotlessly clean and of the most expensive description.  The walls here were plainly whitewashed, and the floor was of hard stone.  He then tried the door on the left, which led into the larger portion of the building—­the shed in which the lifeboat had once been kept.  Not only was the door locked, but he saw at once that the lock was modern, and the door itself was secured with heavy iron clamps.  He returned to the sitting-room.

“The girl with the grey eyes was right enough,” he remarked to himself.  “Mr. Fentolin has been making himself very much at home with my property.”

He withdrew the curtains, noticing, to his surprise, the heavy shutters which their folds had partly concealed.  Then he made his way out along the passage to the front door, which from the inside he was able to open easily enough.  Leaving it carefully ajar, he went out with the intention of making an examination of the outside of the place.  Instead, however, he paused at the corner of the building with his face turned landwards.  Exactly fronting him now, about three-quarters of a mile away, on the summit of that strange hill which stood out like a gigantic rock in the wilderness, was St. David’s Hall.  He looked at it steadily and with increasing admiration.  Its long, red brick front with its masses of clustering chimneys, a little bare and weather-beaten, impressed him with a sense of dignity due as much to the purity of its architecture as the singularity of its situation.  Behind—­a wonderfully effective background—­were the steep gardens from which, even in this uncertain light, he caught faint glimpses of colouring subdued from brilliancy by the twilight.  These were encircled by a brick wall of great height, the whole