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