She sipped it slowly, leaning back in the fauteuil where I had placed her, and in silence we both looked out on the November night.

There was a moon, but she was veiled by driving clouds, which ever and anon swept asunder to show her gleaming pallidly white, like the restless spirit of a deceived and murdered lady.

A rising wind moaned dismally among the fading creepers and rustled the heavy branches of a giant cypress that stood on the lawn like a huge spectral mourner draped in black, apparently waiting for a forest funeral.

Now and then a few big drops of rain fell-sudden tears wrung as though by force from the black heart of the sky.

My wife shivered.
"Shut the window!" she said, glancing back at me where I stood behind her chair.