then, shutting the lattice, she pulled the curtains across it, and
taking her lit candle, went to her secluded inner sleeping-
chamber, where, in the small, quaintly carved four-poster bed,
furnished with ancient tapestry and lavendered linen, and covered
up under a quilt embroidered three centuries back by the useful
fingers of the wife of Sieur Amadis de Jocelin, she soon fell into
a sound and dreamless slumber.

The hours moved on, bearing with them different destinies to
millions of different human lives, and the tall old clock in the
great hall of Briar Farm told them off with a sonorous chime and
clangour worthy of Westminster itself. It was a quiet night; there
was not a breath of wind to whistle through crack or key-hole, or
swing open an unbolted door,--and Hero, the huge mastiff that
always slept "on guard" just within the hall entrance, had surely
no cause to sit up suddenly on his great haunches and listen with
uplifted ears to sounds which were to any other creature
inaudible. Yet listen he did--sharply and intently. Raising his
massive head he snuffed the air--then suddenly began to tremble as
with cold, and gave vent to a long, low, dismal moan. It was a
weird noise--worse than positive howling, and the dog himself
seemed distressfully conscious that he was expressing something
strange and unnatural. Two or three times he repeated this eerie
muffled cry--then, lying down again, he put his nose between his
great paws, and, with a deep shivering sigh, appeared to resign
himself to the inevitable. There followed several moments of tense
silence. Then came a sudden dull thud overhead, as of a heavy load
falling or being thrown down, and a curious inexplicable murmur
like smothered choking or groaning. Instantly the great dog sprang
erect and raced up the staircase like a mad creature, barking