The stables opened upon the pitched court, and in that court was the main entrance:  naturally that was the one to be used.  But in front of it was a great flight of steps, the whole depth of the ditch, with the marble gate at the foot of them; and not knowing the carriageway, he feared both suspicion and loss of time, where a single moment might be all that divided failure from success.  Also at this gate were a double portcullis and drawbridge, the working of whose machinery took time, and of all things a quick execution was essential, seeing that at any moment sleeping suspicion might awake, and find enough to keep her so.  At the other gate there was but one portcullis and no drawbridge, while from it he perfectly knew the way to the brick gate.  Clearly this was the preferable for his attempt.  There was but one point to cast in the other scale—­namely, that, if old Eccles were still the warder of it, there would be danger of his recognition in respect both of himself and his mare.  But, on the other hand, he thought he could turn to account his knowledge of the fact that the marquis’s room was over it.  So here the scale had settled to rebound no more—­except indeed he should now discover any difficulty in passing from the stone court in which lay the mouth of the stables, to the fountain court in which stood the preferable gate.  This question he must now settle, for once on horseback there must be no deliberation.

One way at least there must be—­through the hall:  the hall must be accessible from both courts.  He pulled off his shoes, and stepped softly in.  Through the high window immediately over the huge fireplace, a little moonlight fell on the northern gable-wall, turning the minstrels’ gallery into an aerial bridge to some strange region of loveliness, and in the shadow under it he found at once the door he sought, standing open but dark under a deep porch.

Issuing and gliding along by the side of the hall and round the great bay window, he came to the stair indicated by Mrs. Rees, and descending a little way, stood and listened:  plainly enough to his practised ear, what the old woman had represented as the underground passage to the airiest of stables, was itself full of horses.  To go down amongst these in the dark, and in ignorance of the construction of the stable, was somewhat perilous; but he had not come there to avoid risk.  Step by step he stole softly down, and, arrived at the bottom, seated himself on the last—­to wait until his eyes should get so far accustomed to the darkness as to distinguish the poor difference between the faint dusk sinking down the stair and the absolute murk.  A little further on, he could descry two or three grated openings into the fountain court, but by them nothing could enter beyond the faintest reflection of moonlight from the windows between the grand staircase and the bell tower.