"It was here," he said, "that the two men dismounted."

Then a few yards farther on:

"Alan came round from the door there, and they fought here. Alan forced
the stranger on to the turf. When he was stabbed he fell here."

He pointed to a spot where the road commenced to turn to the left to clear
the house. Brett watched him narrowly. The young man was describing his
dream, not the actual murder. The vision was far more real to him.

"It was just such a day as this," he continued. "It might have been almost
this hour. The library windows--"

He ceased and looked fixedly towards the house. Brett, too, gazed in
silence. They saw a small, pale-faced, exceedingly handsome Italian--a
young man, with coal-black eyes and a mass of shining black hair--scowling
at them from within the library.

A black velvet coat and a brilliant tie were the only bizarre features of
his costume. They served sufficiently to enhance his foreign appearance.
Such a man would be correctly placed in the marble frame of a Neapolitan
villa; here he was unusual, _outré_, "un-English," as Brett put it.

But he was evidently master. He flung open the window, and said, with some
degree of hauteur:

"Whom do you wish to see? Can I be of any assistance?"