"You have not spent much of your new paint on your guest-room, my
friend."
"Sir, you have not marked the door," said his host, reproachfully.
"True," said Wogan, with a yawn; "the door is admirably white."
"The frame of the door does not suffer in a comparison." The landlord
raised and lowered his candle that Wogan might see.
"I do not wish to be unjust to the frame of the door," said Wogan, and
he drew off his boots. The landlord bade his guest good-night and
descended the stairs.
Wogan, being a campaigner, was methodical even though lost in
reflection. He was reflecting now why in the world he should lately have
become sensible of loneliness; but at the same time he put the Prince's
letter beneath his pillow and a sheathed hunting-knife beside the
letter. He had always been lonely, and the fact had never troubled him;
he placed a chair on the left of the bed and his candle on the chair.
Besides, he was not really lonely, having a host of friends whom he had
merely to seek out; he took the charges from his pistol lest they should
be damp, and renewed them and placed the pistols by the candle. He had
even begun to pity himself for his loneliness, and pity of that sort, he
recognised, was a discreditable quality; the matter was altogether very
disquieting. He propped his sword against the chair and undressed. Wogan
cast back in his memories for the first sensations of loneliness. They
were recent, since he had left Ohlau, indeed. He opened the window; the
rain splashed in on the sill, pattered in the street puddles below, and
fell across the country with a continuous roar as though the level plain
was a stretched drum. No; he had only felt lonely since he had come near
to Schlestadt, since, in a word, he had deemed himself to have
outstripped pursuit. He got into his bed and blew out the candle.
For a moment the room was black as pitch, then on his left side the
darkness thinned at one point and a barred square of grey became
visible; the square of grey was the window. Wogan understood that his
loneliness came upon him with the respite from his difficulties, and
concluded that, after all, it was as well that he had not a comfortable
fireside whereby to sun himself. He turned over on his right side and
saw the white door and its white frame. The rain made a dreary sound
outside the window, but in three days he would be at Schlestadt. Besides
he fell asleep.