To die, and in so doing take evil with me, leaving the world so much the better? To die, and perhaps find for myself that oblivion, that untroubled rest that I so earnestly desired? Surely Death, after all, was the Great Good Thing? So I walked on at leisurely pace, serene, assured and utterly content. Reaching the high road, I followed it until I espied a rutted byway bounded on the one hand by lofty trees and on the other by a high and sinister wall. At the same leisurely pace I strolled down this dark lane and thus arrived at a pair of tall and very massive iron gates. Here I paused, and though the adjacent trees cast much shadow, presently discovered a bell handle to which I applied myself forthwith. After some delay the door of the lodge opened and a figure appeared, though strangely vague and indistinct and then, peering at me through the bars of the gate, I saw a gigantic negro, his skin as black as his livery. "Is your master in?" I demanded. "Who yo' mean--mah master?" he replied in surly tone. "I wish to see Mr. Haredale or Captain Danby." "No sich names hyah!" "Well then, I want Mr. Trenchard." "Who's yo' se'f to see Mas'r Trenchard?" "I am an--acquaintance of his." "Well, ah don' know yo' face, so ah guess dey's bof' out fo' you an' so's yo'se'f--an' can stay out, fo' shure." Having said which, the negro laughed shrilly, and I saw the flash of his teeth ere he departed. Balked thus but determined as ever, I turned away and began to follow the wall, looking for a place where I might climb it by means of some tree or rise in the ground. And with every step the sudden conviction I had formed that Trenchard was Haredale grew stronger; and Haredale, as I knew, was but another name for that evil rogue whose name had once been Devereux. I went slowly, scanning every yard of the wall for a likely place, now in brilliant moonlight, now in shadow, while stronger and stronger waxed my determination that, supposing Trenchard were Devereux indeed, I would this night rid the world of him once and for all. Presently, as I went, resolutely seeking a way to come at my desire, I found myself stumbling amid the dense gloom of tall trees; but I pushed on until before me, the moon being now high-risen, I saw the blackness cleft by a shaft of radiance and, coming nearer, stopped all at once to scowl at a small door in the wall that seemed to scowl back at me between deep buttresses. Now suddenly, as I stood thus, I heard a sound of steps and voices on the other side of the wall, a key was thrust into the lock of this door, and instinctively I shrank back and back into the gloom of the trees; I heard the key turn, the drawing of heavy bolts, and then, as I crouched, hand upon the weapon in my pocket, the door opened. And now at last I knew why this door had haunted my dreams, a thing of unutterable evil for, from beneath its frowning shadow, out into the moonlight, stepped Diana.