During the morning my father kept me working in the garden where he was erecting a kind of arch of trellis-work above the gate, but after our early dinner I went up to Derryaghy. Ever since I had awakened, my mind had been filled with the letter I had written, and with guesses as to how it would affect Katherine. I hurried along, for our dinner was at two, while their lunch was at one, and I had made no appointment, so that when I reached the house, and found they were all gone out, I was not greatly surprised. Katherine and Gerald had gone out riding; they would be back for tea. I left a message to say I would call some time in the evening and went upstairs to choose a book. In the silent library the faint sound of my feet on the thick carpet made little more noise than the rustle of a ghost, and when I had found what I wanted I paused with the book unopened in my hand. Through the window I could look out into the afternoon garden, sunlit and mellow, but in the house itself the silence of those upper rooms struck me, as always, with a suggestion of a faint, bygone life, of spiritual presences, unseen, yet watching and listening. I walked slowly down the passage, looking at the portraits, and trying to picture the lives of those who had sat for them. Were they aware of my scrutiny, of my curiosity, possibly indiscreet? did I disturb the dust of the past, did they welcome or, perchance, resent my intrusion into that delicate dream-life that had fallen upon them? I loved to amuse myself with such fancies, idle enough, not to be communicated to others. The air seemed heavy with a kind of still, intense reverie, through which there came the vibration of a hidden mysterious life. Were I the true son of the house, I told myself, a sign of recognition might have been given to me; but I was a stranger, an intruder, and my robuster, noisier presence could but disturb their ethereal existence. There was something almost vulgar in being physically alive among that shadowy company. I longed to pass the threshold of their world and learn its secrets. Perhaps if I were really to love that dark, sweet lady, Prudence Carroll, to declare my love, to kiss her painted lips, I might be admitted to it. Would she be jealous when I left her? To love a dream, a memory, that was very possible; but to be faithful to it? Through the door I had left ajar a golden stream of sunlight, filled with floating specks of dust, swam across the shadowed passage, and just touched the flowers in her hand. But my ghosts had never been afraid of sunlight: they were not afraid to walk in the deserted garden or to pass me on the stairs or in the hall. Often I had felt them to be there, and some day, I knew, I should see them. With this thought there came to me a desire to revisit their own garden, a walled place of dark green graves, where they wandered undisturbed.