You don’t happen to
know it, I suppose?”

“It’s from that man Britnell, I suppose, isn’t it?” said Binks. “Is it
for the museum?”

“Well, I think I should buy it if the price was five shillings,” said
Williams; “but for some unearthly reason he wants two guineas for it. I
can’t conceive why. It’s a wretched engraving, and there aren’t even
any figures to give it life.”

“It’s not worth two guineas, I should think,” said Binks; “but I don’t
think it’s so badly done. The moonlight seems rather good to me; and I
should have thought there _were_ figures, or at least a figure, just on
the edge in front.”

“Let’s look,” said Williams. “Well, it’s true the light is rather
cleverly given. Where’s your figure? Oh yes! Just the head, in the very
front of the picture.”

And indeed there was—hardly more than a black blot on the extreme edge
of the engraving—the head of a man or woman, a good deal muffled up,
the back turned to the spectator, and looking towards the house. Williams had not noticed it before. “Still,” he said, “though it’s a cleverer thing than I thought, I can’t
spend two guineas of museum money on a picture of a place I don’t
know.”

Professor Binks had his work to do, and soon went; and very nearly up
to Hall time Williams was engaged in a vain attempt to identify the
subject of his picture. “If the vowel before the _ng_ had only been
left, it would have been easy enough,” he thought; “but as it is, the
name may be anything from Guestingley to Langley, and there are many
more names ending like this than I thought; and this rotten book has no
index of terminations.”

Hall in Mr Williams’s college was at seven. It need not be dwelt upon;
the less so as he met there colleagues who had been playing golf during
the afternoon, and words with which we have no concern were freely
bandied across the table—merely golfing words, I would hasten to
explain. I suppose an hour or more to have been spent in what is called
common-room after dinner. Later in the evening some few retired to
Williams’s rooms, and I have little doubt that whist was played and
tobacco smoked. During a lull in these operations Williams picked up
the mezzotint from the table without looking at it, and handed it to a
person mildly interested in art, telling him where it had come from,
and the other particulars which we already know. The gentleman took it carelessly, looked at it, then said, in a tone of
some interest:

“It’s really a very good piece of work, Williams; it has quite a
feeling of the romantic period. The light is admirably managed, it
seems to me, and the figure, though it’s rather too grotesque, is
somehow very impressive.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” said Williams, who was just then busy giving
whisky-and-soda to others of the company, and was unable to come across
the room to look at the view again. It was by this time rather late in the evening, and the visitors were
on the move. After they went Williams was obliged to write a letter or
two and clear up some odd bits of work. At last, some time past
midnight, he was disposed to turn in, and he put out his lamp after
lighting his bedroom candle. The picture lay face upwards on the table
where the last man who looked at it had put it, and it caught his eye
as he turned the lamp down. What he saw made him very nearly drop the
candle on the floor, and he declares now that if he had been left in
the dark at that moment he would have had a fit. But, as that did not
happen, he was able to put down the light on the table and take a good
look at the picture. It was indubitable—rankly impossible, no doubt,
but absolutely certain. In the middle of the lawn in front of the
unknown house there was a figure where no figure had been at five
o’clock that afternoon. It was crawling on all-fours towards the house,
and it was muffled in a strange black garment with a white cross on the
back. I do not know what is the ideal course to pursue in a situation of this
kind. I can only tell you what Mr Williams did. He took the picture by
one corner and carried it across the passage to a second set of rooms
which he possessed. There he locked it up in a drawer, sported the
doors of both sets of rooms, and retired to bed; but first he wrote out
and signed an account of the extraordinary change which the picture had
undergone since it had come into his possession. Sleep visited him rather late; but it was consoling to reflect that the
behaviour of the picture did not depend upon his own unsupported
testimony. Evidently the man who had looked at it the night before had
seen something of the same kind as he had, otherwise he might have been
tempted to think that something gravely wrong was happening either to
his eyes or his mind. This possibility being fortunately precluded, two
matters awaited him on the morrow. He must take stock of the picture
very carefully, and call in a witness for the purpose, and he must make
a determined effort to ascertain what house it was that was
represented. He would therefore ask his neighbour Nisbet to breakfast
with him, and he would subsequently spend a morning over the gazetteer. Nisbet was disengaged, and arrived about 9.30. His host was not quite
dressed, I am sorry to say, even at this late hour. During breakfast
nothing was said about the mezzotint by Williams, save that he had a
picture on which he wished for Nisbet’s opinion. But those who are
familiar with University life can picture for themselves the wide and
delightful range of subjects over which the conversation of two Fellows
of Canterbury College is likely to extend during a Sunday morning
breakfast. Hardly a topic was left unchallenged, from golf to
lawn-tennis. Yet I am bound to say that Williams was rather distraught;
for his interest naturally centred in that very strange picture which
was now reposing, face downwards, in the drawer in the room opposite. The morning pipe was at last lighted, and the moment had arrived for
which he looked. With very considerable—almost tremulous—excitement he
ran across, unlocked the drawer, and, extracting the picture—still face
downwards—ran back, and put it into Nisbet’s hands. “Now,” he said, “Nisbet, I want you to tell me exactly what you see in
that picture. Describe it, if you don’t mind, rather minutely. I’ll
tell you why afterwards.”

“Well,” said Nisbet, “I have here a view of a country-house—English, I
presume—by moonlight.”

“Moonlight? You’re sure of that?”

“Certainly. The moon appears to be on the wane, if you wish for
details, and there are clouds in the sky.”

“All right. Go on. I’ll swear,” added Williams in an aside, “there was
no moon when I saw it first.”

“Well, there’s not much more to be said,” Nisbet continued. “The house
has one—two—three rows of windows, five in each row, except at the
bottom, where there’s a porch instead of the middle one, and—”

“But what about figures?” said Williams, with marked interest. “There aren’t any,” said Nisbet; “but—”

“What!