“Ma chandelle est morte, Je n’ai plus de feu!” He reached the top, and passed through an iron gate. “Ouvre-moi ta porte, Pour l’amour de Dieu!” Almost before he realised that he was trespassing, he was standing on the lawn of the house he had seen from the sea. SCENE II THE UNEXPECTED WELCOME A veranda, overhung by rambler roses, ran the full length of the front of the house. Through the diamond panes of low lattice windows, the fitful glow of firelight gleamed. The Lonely Man hesitated, half turned away, then, drawn by an irresistible attraction, stepped on to the veranda, stood in the shadow, and looked in at a window. The room was so large, and its occupants so far from the windows, that the silent intruder had small need to fear detection. His first furtive glance into the interior awakened, with a sudden throb, more strongly than ever before, that illusive sense of home. He drew nearer. A long, low room; the many windows running half the length of the veranda, a cushioned window seat beneath them. A door, on his left, opened on to the veranda. At the opposite side of the room, another door, standing ajar, led into a large hall. At the top of the room, on his right, a log fire burned in the huge fireplace. The leaping flames illumined the oak panelling and played on the carved beams in the ceiling. Persian rugs, in soft tints of blue and rose, lay upon the polished parquet. A couch, on the further side of the fireplace, and at right-angles to it, faced the windows. In the centre, opposite the hearth, stood two large easy chairs. These chairs were occupied by a young man in tweeds and shooting-boots—who lay back luxuriously with legs outstretched, as if long tramping in the heather had earned him a welcome rest—and by a very lovely girl, whose smiles and looks of happy tenderness were divided between the sturdy figure in the other chair, and a very small boy in Highland dress, who darted to and fro between them, trying to intercept a ball as they threw it to one another; a brave little figure, in tartan kilt and velvet jacket; his brown curls tumbled, his dark eyes shining, as he fell, over his father’s legs, headlong into his mother’s lap. One casement stood open, and the lonely watcher could hear their merry laughter and the boy’s triumphant shout as he snatched the ball from his mother’s hand. Holding it above his head, he danced out into the middle of the room, in full view of the windows. The watching eyes narrowed in puzzled wonder.