In this mood the good landlady of the "Three Archangels" found him and marvelled at British indifference in the face of a love tragedy. And he was still in this selfsame mood half an hour or so later when my lord of Stowmaries and his friends came upon the solitary watcher in the night.
Michael had not eaten, nor had he relinquished his place by the open window, for it seemed to his over-sensitive mind as if the sound of those wheels which bore his snowdrop further and further away from him echoed against the distant bank of storm-portending clouds, and though the heartrending sound reverberated within him like unto the grinding of the rack which tears the limbs and martyrizes the body, yet it still seemed something of her, the last memory, the final farewell.
It was past ten o'clock now, and of a surety Michael thought that he must have fallen asleep, dreaming by that open window, when the sudden noise of several familiar voices, a loud if somewhat forced laugh, and the peremptory throwing open of the door brought the dreamer back to the exigencies of the moment.
The aspect of the room was almost weird, dark and gloomy with only the slanting moonbeams to touch with pale and capricious light the tall, solitary figure in the window embrasure.
For a moment the three men paused beneath the lintel, their volatile imagination strangely gripped by the picture before them, that dark silhouette against the moonlit landscape beyond, the total air of desolation and loneliness which seemed to hang like a pall even in the gloom.
Sir John Ayloffe was the first to shake himself free from this unwonted feeling of superstitious awe:
"Friend Michael, by the Mass!" he shouted with somewhat forced jocoseness. "Still astir, and like the love-sick poet contemplating the moon."
The loud words broke the spell of subtle and weird magic which seemed to pervade the place. Michael Kestyon gave a start and turned abruptly away from the window.
"Are we welcome, Michael?" added Lord Rochester pleasantly. "Or do we intrude?"
Michael whose surprise at seeing the three men had been quite momentary, now came forward with outstretched hands.