CHAPTER XXXIV

OF GATHERING SHADOWS A great house that soared above the huddle of its meaner neighbours, disdainful in decay; a very ancient house, spacious as the times wherein it was built; but age and neglect had worked its ruin long since, and yet, as if dreaming of its vanished splendour, it frowned upon court and alley in gloomy stateliness. Up broad, uncarpeted, grimy stair to wide and desolate landing panelled in oak, its deep-graven moulding brutally defaced and marred and so to a lofty door, battered and age-worn, that …