THE UNSPEAKABLE GENTLEMAN
of the land about us, save varying tones of black. Had he gone?
I cautiously dismounted. In a minute we should see. In a minute—Then Mademoiselle interrupted me, and I was both astonished and irritated, for my nerves were more on edge than I cared to have them. She was right. She was never overwrought.
"We are there?" she inquired.
"Softly, Mademoiselle," I cautioned her. "If you will dismount, you can see the place. It is not three hundred feet beyond the thicket. So! You will admit it is not much to look at. If you will hold the horse's head, I will go forward."
I did not listen to an objection that she was framing, but slipped hastily through the trees. As the ugly mass of the house took a more certain shape before me, I felt my pulse beat more rapidly, and not entirely through elation. Even today when I look at a place that men have built and then abandoned, something of the same feeling comes over me, but not as strongly as it did that evening. It was another matter that made me hesitate. From the shadow of the doorway I heard a sound which was too much like the raising of a pistol hammer not
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