More amazed than before, Ruth followed her leader up the western slope of Gallow Hill. The night was so dark that they heard the rustle of the beeches on top before they could discern their branches against the sky; and standing under them presently, panting from their climb, they gazed down upon a double row of warm lights embedded in blackness. These were the hall windows, in even tier, with here and there one missing, like the broken teeth of a comb. Outline the building had none; only the windows were bitten upon a sable canvas in ruddy orange and glimmering yellow, from which there was just enough reflection on the lawn and shrubs to chain them to earth in the mind of one who watched.
"Only the windows," murmured Tiny musingly. "Those windows mean to haunt me for the rest of my time."
"I wish it were moonlight," Ruth said. "I wish we could see everything."
"No, I like it best as it is," remarked Tiny, after further meditation. "It leaves something to your imagination. Those windows are going to leave my imagination uncommonly well off!"
They stood together in silence, and the beeches talked in whispers above them. When Ruth spoke next she whispered too, as though they were just outside those lighted windows:
"Yet you would rather live at Wallandoon than anywhere else on earth!"
Tiny said nothing to that; but after it, at a distance, there came a sigh.
"What's the matter, Ruth?"
"I'd rather not tell you, dear; it might make you angry."
"I think I like being made angry just at present," said Christina, with a little laugh; "but you've spiked my guns by saying that first; you are quite safe, my dear."