"I daresay it is nonsense, but it seems to me sense. I don't feel as if I was anybody... I can imagine what a house feels like that has been happily lived in for years, when the family goes away, and leaves it empty. There's a board up 'To let, unfurnished,' and the windows get dirty, and the knocker and door-handle, which were so well rubbed and polished, get dull. There used to be curtains in the windows, and in the evening passers-by in the street could see chinks of light from within, and perhaps hear sounds of laughter. But now there are no curtains, and the pictures have gone from the walls, leaving oblong marks where they used to hang. And the spirit of the house stares mournfully out, thinking of the days when there was laughter and love within its walls. Haven't you ever seen a house like that? They're common enough." She pressed the hand that lay loose in the crook of her elbow. "Oh, Archie, you give me such a heartache," she said. "Well, I won't again. But if you think me wanting in affection to mother, or you, or anybody, just remember that I'm an empty house for the present. I daresay somebody will take me again." Jessie felt that this was a truer Archie than he who had stopped so long in the dining-room and come in afterwards with a shout of laughter over something that he would not recount. But by now their stroll had taken them close to the long grey front of the house, and for the present Archie had no more to say, and was evidently meaning to go indoors again. Upstairs all was dark, but below, the five windows of the drawing-room, uncurtained and open, cast oblongs of light on to the gravel, and next to them the two windows of Lord Tintagel's study were lit. Even as they stepped from the grass on to the walk, and their footsteps became audible again, his figure, silhouetted against the light, appeared there, and the window-sash rattled as he opened it wider. "Is that you, Archie?" he called. "Come in and see me before you go upstairs." "All right, father," said he, "we're just coming in." Jessie heard a fresh vigour in his quickened voice, and in the light from the windows she could see that his face was alert again. And it was with a sense of certainty that she guessed what had given him this sudden animation. Perhaps it was only the knowledge of his father's habits that informed her, perhaps it was a brain-wave passing from him to her that told her that inside his father's room were the things for which he craved, the cool hiss of bubbling water on to the ice that swam in the spirits... "You're not going to sit up long, are you?" she said. "Oh, I don't know. My father and I often have a talk in the evening. And sometimes I do some writing before I go to bed. It's quite a good time for writing when every one has gone to bed and the house is quiet." "You always used to say at Silorno that you wrote best in the morning."