Now what I should have thought of such a story if it had been told me in London I can easily imagine. There was such an obvious explanation: the man in question had been a drunkard, what wonder if the demons of delirium pursued him? But here in Polearn it was different. “And who is in the quarry-house now?” I asked. “Years ago the fisher-boys told me the story of the man who first built it and of his horrible end. And now again it has happened. Surely no one has ventured to inhabit it once more?” I saw in her face, even before I asked that question, that somebody had done so. “Yes, it is lived in again,” said she, “for there is no end to the blindness.... I don’t know if you remember him. He was tenant of the vicarage many years ago.” “John Evans,” said I. “Yes. Such a nice fellow he was too. Your uncle was pleased to get so good a tenant. And now----” She rose. “Aunt Hester, you shouldn’t leave your sentences unfinished,” I said. She shook her head. “My dear, that sentence will finish itself,” she said. “But what a time of night! I must go to bed, and you too, or they will think we have to keep lights burning here through the dark hours.” * * * * * Before getting into bed I drew my curtains wide and opened all the windows to the warm tide of the sea air that flowed softly in. Looking out into the garden I could see in the moonlight the roof of the shelter, in which for three years I had lived, gleaming with dew. That, as much as anything, brought back the old days to which I had now returned, and they seemed of one piece with the present, as if no gap of more than twenty years sundered them. The two flowed into one like globules of mercury uniting into a softly shining globe, of mysterious lights and reflections. Then, raising my eyes a little, I saw against the black hill-side the windows of the quarry-house still alight.