Chapter 32 - Page 2

to the pavement, his hand upon
my shoulder. 'Talk to me. Tell me - what are you going to do?

We walked slowly down the deserted avenue, I, meanwhile,
talking of my pians.

'You love. Hope,' he said presently. 'You will marry her?

'If she will have me,' said I.

'You must wait,' he said, 'time enough!

He quickened his pace again as we came in sight of the scattering
shops and houses of the upper city and no other word was spoken.
On the corners we saw men looking into the sky and talking of the
fallen moon. It was late bedtime when we turned into Gramercy
Park.

'Come in,' said he as he opened an iron gate.

I followed him up a marble stairway and a doddering old English
butler opened the door for us. We entered a fine hall, its floor of
beautiful parquetry muffled with silken rugs. High and spacious
rooms were all aglow with light.

He conducted me to a large smoking-room, its floor and walls
covered with trophies of the hunt - antlers and the skins of
carnivora. Here he threw off his coat and bade me be at home as
he lay down upon a wicker divan covered with the tawny skin of
some wild animal. He stroked the fur fondly with his hand.

'Hello Jock!' he said, a greeting that mystified me.

'Tried to eat me,' he added, turning to me.

Then he bared his great hairy arm and showed me a lot of ugly
scars, I besought him to tell the story.

'Killed him,' he answered. 'With a gun?

'No - with my hands,' and that was all he would say of it.

He lay facing a black curtain that covered a corner. Now and then I
heard a singular sound in the room - like some faint, far, night cry
such as I have heard often in the deep woods. It was so weird I felt
some wonder of it. Presently I could tell it came from behind the
curtain where, also, I heard an odd rustle like that of wings.

I sat in a reverie, looking at the silent man before me, and in the
midst of it he pulled a cord that hung near him and a bell rang.

'Luncheon!' he said to the old butler who entered immediately.

Then he rose and showed me odd things, carved out of wood, by
his own hand as he told me, and with a delicate art. He looked at
one tiny thing and laid it aside quickly.

'Can't bear to look at it now,' he said.

'Gibbet?' I enquired.

'Gibbet,' he answered.

It was a little figure bound hand and foot and hanging from the
gallows tree.

'Burn it!' he said, turning to the old servant and putting it in his
hands. Luncheon had been set between us, the while, and as we
were eating it the butler opened a big couch and threw snowy
sheets of linen over it and silken covers that rustled as they fell.

'You will sleep there,'