Where the plantation ended stood a low, two-storied house of medium
size, with a veranda stretching its full length in front. It stood
back from the road some distance and appeared to be surrounded by a
large garden.

At the gate Dunn halted and struck a match as if to light a pipe,
and by the flickering flame of this match the name "Bittermeads,"
painted on the gate became visible.

"Here it is, then," he muttered. "I wonder--"

Without completing the sentence he slipped through the gate, which
was not quite closed, and entered the garden, where he crouched
down in the shadow of some bushes that grew by the side of the
gravel path leading to the house, and seemed to compose himself
for a long vigil.

An hour passed, and another. Nothing had happened--he had seen
nothing, heard nothing, save for the passing of an occasional
vehicle or pedestrian on the road, and he himself had never stirred
or moved, so that he seemed one with the night and one with the
shadows where he crouched, and a pair of field-mice that had come
from the common opposite went to and fro about their busy occupations
at his feet without paying him the least attention.

Another hour passed, and at last there began to be signs of life
about the house.

A light shone in one window and in another, and vanished, and soon
the door opened and there appeared two people on the threshold,