As they reined in their horses a few yards from the low wall, which enclosed a space of rank and untended shrubbery, the younger horseman saw, not without a sense of misgiving, that the whole front of the house was in darkness. Not the faintest glimmer of light was anywhere visible.
"And do you mean to tell me," he asked in a low voice, for a sense of night and darkness was upon him, "that this desolate and out-of-the-world spot is any one's home?"
"It is the home of Mr. Cope-Ellerslie, as I have already remarked."
"How far away is Mr. Ellerslie's nearest neighbor?"
"Four good miles, as the crow flies. But he is a recluse and a student, and the loneliness of Rockmount was probably his main inducement for becoming its tenant."
"In any case, we are too late to-night to claim his hospitality. There is not a light anywhere visible."
"You mean that there's none to be seen from where we are standing," retorted the highwayman dryly. "But that's no proof Mr. Ellerslie's abed. He's a genuine nightbird, and often does not go to roost before daybreak, so busy is he over his studies of one kind or another."
At another time the younger man might have wondered how his law-breaking companion had acquired such an intimate knowledge of the habits of the recluse of Rockmount, but just then he had other things to think about.
"Follow me," said the highwayman, and with that he walked his horse round a corner of the house, to where a large bow window, invisible before, bulged out from the main building.
"That is the window of Mr. Ellerslie's study," he resumed. "You can see by the light shining through the circular openings at the top of the shutters that he is still at work."