"I only caught the briefest glimpse--besides, she was heavily veiled and seemed to be asleep--" "Asleep!" exclaimed Anthony fiercely. "Asleep! By God, Perry, I'm half-minded to wait until that damned chaise comes up and see for myself." "I beg you will do no such thing!" said I, abhorring the idea of violence and possible bloodshed. "If you are hungry--so am I. Let us get on to Wrotham and dinner." So we mounted and in due time descended the steep hill into the pleasant village of Wrotham. The "Bull" welcomed us, or more particularly Anthony, with cheeriness tempered with respect; such a bustling of ostlers, running to and fro of serving men; such a dimpling and curtseying of buxom, neat-capped maids; such beaming obeisances from mine host, all to welcome "Mr. Anthony": indeed such a reception as might have warmed the heart of any man save your embittered, cold-hearted cynic or one who rode with demons on his shoulders. Though the fare was excellent my appetite was poor and I ate and drank but little, to Anthony's evident concern; and when at last we took the road again, I rode with a jibbering devil on either shoulder, filling me again with nameless fears and vague, unreasoning doubts of I knew not what. Above and around me seemed an ever-growing shadow, a foreboding expectancy of an oncoming evil I could neither define nor shake off, try how I would. Anthony seemed to sense something of this and (like the good fellow he was) strove valiantly to banish my uncanny gloom, though my attention often wandered and I answered at random or not at all. "Clothes go a damned long way with a woman, Perry!" he was saying. "I'm married and I know! That evening suit o' yours with the lavender-flowered waistcoat is bound to rivet her eye--nail her regard, d'ye see! Then there's your new riding suit, I mean the bottle-green frock with the gold-crested buttons. She must see you in that and there's few look better astride a horse than yourself--" here I became lost again in the vile gibbering of my demons until these words of Anthony's brought me back again: "--dev'lish solitary place with an unsavoury reputation. The country folk say it's haunted." "I beg your pardon, Tony, but what were you telling me?" "My poor ass," said Anthony, edging nearer the better to peer into my face, "I have been endeavouring to give you a brief description of Raydon Manor--the house peeping amid the trees yonder." We were climbing a hill and from this eminence could behold a fair sweep of landscape, a rolling, richly wooded countryside very pleasant to behold, and, following the direction pointed by Anthony's whip, I descried the gables of a great, grey house bowered in dense-growing trees that seemed to shut the building in on every side, the whole further enclosed by a lofty wall. "Ah, a haunted house, Anthony," said I, glancing at the place with perfunctory interest.