I have said that there was no real affection between this man and me; but, had I loved him like a brother, I was then so much more in love with solitude that I should none the less have shunned his company.  As it was, I turned and ran for it; and it was with genuine satisfaction that I found myself safely back beside the fire.  I had escaped an acquaintance; I should have one more night in comfort.  In the morning, I might either slip away before Northmour was abroad, or pay him as short a visit as I chose.

But when morning came, I thought the situation so diverting that I forgot my shyness.  Northmour was at my mercy; I arranged a good practical jest, though I knew well that my neighbor was not the man to jest with in security; and, chuckling beforehand over its success, took my place among the elders at the edge of the wood, whence I could command the door of the pavilion.  The shutters were all once more closed, which I remember thinking odd; and the house, with its white walls and green venetians, looked spruce and habitable in the morning light.  Hour after hour passed, and still no sign of Northmour.  I knew him for a sluggard in the morning; but, as it drew on toward noon, I lost my patience.  To say the truth, I had promised myself to break my fast in the pavilion, and hunger began to prick me sharply.  It was a pity to let the opportunity go by without some cause for mirth; but the grosser appetite prevailed, and I relinquished my jest with regret, and sallied from the wood.

The appearance of the house affected me, as I drew near, with disquietude.  It seemed unchanged since last evening; and I had expected it, I scarce knew why, to wear some external signs of habitation.  But no:  the windows were all closely shuttered, the chimneys breathed no smoke, and the front door itself was closely padlocked.  Northmour, therefore, had entered by the back; this was the natural, and indeed, the necessary conclusion; and you may judge of my surprise when, on turning the house, I found the back door similarly secured.

My mind at once reverted to the original theory of thieves; and I blamed myself sharply for my last night’s inaction.  I examined all the windows on the lower story, but none of them had been tampered with; I tried the padlocks, but they were both secure.  It thus became a problem how the thieves, if thieves they were, had managed to enter the house.  They must have got, I reasoned, upon the roof of the outhouse where Northmour used to keep his photographic battery; and from thence, either by the window of the study or that of my old bedroom, completed their burglarious entry.

I followed what I supposed was their example; and, getting on the roof, tried the shutters of each room.  Both were secure; but I was not to be beaten; and, with a little force, one of them flew open, grazing, as it did so, the back of my hand.  I remember, I put the wound to my mouth, and stood for perhaps half a minute licking it like a dog, and mechanically gazing behind me over the waste links and the sea; and, in that space of time, my eye made note of a large schooner yacht some miles to the northeast.  Then I threw up the window and climbed in.