He had reached the end of the most frequented part of the quay by now, and had, indeed, come to a part of it where the high houses, built in many cases of dark blue marble, no longer presented an unbroken array. Instead, they were detached from one another, and stood in large gardens having walls round them; while on the front, towards the quay, were openings in which were enormous iron gates. In many cases great warehouses close by lifted their heads high into the air, so that here they alternated with the residences and spoilt the latter (whose appearance was handsome) by their own unlovely though businesslike aspect. But, farther away still, there stood another mansion deeply embowered in trees and, at some considerable distance beyond it, an enormous warehouse, yet one that was such a distance off that, since the house itself was surrounded by the trees, it would in no way disturb the peace of the latter or the views from it. And the mansion itself now gleamed out white in the evening sun. "It may well be her abode," Bevill thought to himself. "Very well it may; and if it is not, then must I ask the whereabouts of the Weiss Haus; or, maybe, it is across the river. Yet that matters not. I passed a ferry but now." When, however, he stood in front of that great white mansion he learnt that he had found the house of her whom he had come from England to seek. Through the bars of the great iron gate which this mansion possessed in common with the others hard by, Bevill could see the gardens laid out in the stiff Dutch fashion he had so often seen before, though still, it seemed to him as if some attempt had been made to give to them an English appearance. Beyond the straight beds of tulips, the flowers of which were now almost all gone, there was a lawn, or grass plot, green as any lawn in England, smooth and well kept, and having at its edges beds of roses placed in front of formal statues and summer-houses. "There is some touch of our land here," Bevill said to himself. "In good truth, I do believe that I have found the lady." Seeing through the bars an old man weeding 'twixt the rows of tulip plants, though he seemed to do his work in a half-hearted way as though indifferent to what success his efforts might produce, Bevill, addressing him in the best Dutch he could summon up, asked, "Is this the house of Mistress Thorne?" "_Ja; Ja wohl_," the old man said, looking up from his work. "What do you desire?" "To see her. It is for that I am here." The gardener let his eyes rove over Bevill as he received this answer, and observed that he was well and handsomely dressed, although his dress, and breast and neck lace, showed signs of travel in spite of the brushing they had received; then he said: