Silly nonsense.

Footsteps on a gravel path after midnight are generally associated with intruders of malevolent intent. The crunch rings out clearly in an otherwise silent scene and echoes loudly around a moonlit garden. The ominous sound pours like bitter liquid in through open bedroom windows where the occupants are either asleep or romantically occupied and distracted, their amatory yelps and giggles drowning out the footsteps of a would-be killer, thief or spy. They are certainly not asleep.

A man arrives at the window unnoticed and peers in through the net curtain that floats on a current of cool night air rendering the canoodling bodies of those inside indistinct. He sees the priceless painting on the wall just above the lovers' heads, but wait, no he thinks, that's not a head he’s looking at. He blushes and begins to retreat but he's too late and the lovers see him.

A short, high-pitched squeal punctures the amorous atmosphere of the room while sheets are grabbed and draped inadequately around bodies and lights are switched on and dogs begin to bark. 

By the time Imogen Jackdaw has fainted and been revived the intruder is gone and the notion she had so recently cherished of Jones the gardener is gone too, and Jones has been shown the door at gunpoint by Imogen's husband and Jones runs through the grounds shrouded in a bedsheet.

Down by the river he meets his brother, the erstwhile intruder, as arranged. However the priceless picture, the true object of Jones' desirous affection, has eluded the pair, and a fight ensues which ends in the twins falling into the river and drowning, floating silently into the fog-bound countryside to frighten the village washer women when they take the laundry down to the river the next morning.