“That’s my trick,” he said, dropping the end from his mouth; “them Spaniards have a liking for it, and Spaniards are particular in the playing of such tricks.” XXXVI There was to be a moon that night, and the thickets were black at sunset against the cold yellow of a winter sky. Frost hung in the air, with a gusty, arid northeast wind that came sweeping south with a sense of coming snow, while great purple cloudbanks loomed slowly into the north. The grass was already stiffening, and the leaves made a dry thin rattle as John Gore drew up in the beech-thicket over against Thorn. He had brought an extra cloak with him, and a loin-cloth for his horse, and after some searching he found a little hollow where dead bracken stood, and where the beast would be sheltered from the wind. He buckled the bridle about a young ash whose black buds and branches stood out against the sky. John Gore took his sword, pistols, and tools into Thorn with him that night, tying them up in the end of a red scarf, and swinging them after him as he straddled the gate. He hid the sword and one pistol in the ivy at the foot of the tower, and set out on a reconnoissance, holding close under the deep shadow of the walls, and keeping a long knife ready in case the dog should be loose and on the prowl. There was a faint silvery glow low down in the eastern sky, but no moon as yet, and John Gore, meeting the keen north wind, thought of Barbara in that cold room, and felt his heart warm to her, and to Mrs. Winnie as he remembered the blazing kitchen at Furze Farm. Probing about in the dusk, he found the doorway that led into the ruined hall, and in the corner of the hall the rough stone stair and door that gave access to the tower. It might have seemed simpler to have set to work straightway upon that door, but he chose the safer, slower method of forcing the window and then working from within. The rope was dangling from within reach when John Gore returned to the foot of the tower, and he went up it hand over hand with the tools slung behind him by the scarf. He was soon under Barbara’s window, where the rope ran taut over the sill, and, reaching in for a grip of the bars, he called to her in a whisper. “I am here, John, waiting.” He felt the wind on his back, and guessed how miserably cold that room must be. “Poor heart, the blood must be numb in you.” “No, John, not quite.” “Let me have your hands, dear.” He lay in on the window-ledge with his face against the bars, and stretched his arms in. His hands groped for hers and found them, and of a truth they were like ice. “Why, my life, you are all a-shiver!” She was shuddering a little—half with the cold, half with a deep thrill from within. “No, it is not only the cold, John.” “No?” “It is all so strange—and hazardous.” He held her hands between his, and then began to chafe them to get them warm.