That I could have taken the little sound from the bedroom where I actually heard it, and spread it thus over the entire house and grounds, is evidence, perhaps, of the state my nerves were in.

The wailing assuredly was in my mind alone.  But the longer I hesitated, the more difficult became my task, and, gathering up my dressing gown, lest I should trip in the darkness, I passed slowly down the staircase into the hail below.  I carried neither candle nor matches; every switch in room and corridor was known to me.  The covering of darkness was indeed rather comforting than otherwise, for if it prevented seeing, it also prevented being seen.  The heavy pistol, knocking against my thigh as I moved, made me feel I was carrying a child’s toy, foolishly.  I experienced in every nerve that primitive vast dread which is the Thrill of darkness.  Merely the child in me was comforted by that pistol.

The night was not entirely black; the iron bars across the glass front door were visible, and, equally, I discerned the big, stiff wooden chairs in the hall, the gaping fireplace, the upright pillars supporting the staircase, the round table in the center with its books and flower-vases, and the basket that held visitors’ cards.  There, too, was the stick and umbrella stand and the shelf with railway guides, directory, and telegraph forms.  Clocks ticked everywhere with sounds like quiet footfalls.  Light fell here and there in patches from the floor above.  I stood a moment in the hall, letting my eyes grow more accustomed to the gloom, while deciding on a plan of search.  I made out the ivy trailing outside over one of the big windows ... and then the tall clock by the front door made a grating noise deep down inside its body—­it was the Presentation clock, large and hideous, given by the congregation of his church—­and, dreading the booming strike it seemed to threaten, I made a quick decision.  If others beside myself were about in the night, the sound of that striking might cover their approach.

So I tiptoed to the right, where the passage led towards the dining room.  In the other direction were the morning- and drawing rooms, both little used, and various other rooms beyond that had been his, generally now kept locked.  I thought of my sister, waiting upstairs with that frightened woman for my return.  I went quickly, yet stealthily.

And, to my surprise, the door of the dining room was open.  It had been opened.  I paused on the threshold, staring about me.  I think I fully expected to see a figure blocked in the shadows against the heavy sideboard, or looming on the other side beneath his portrait.  But the room was empty; I felt it empty.  Through the wide bow-windows that gave on to the verandah came an uncertain glimmer that even shone reflected in the polished surface of the dinner-table, and again I perceived the stiff outline of chairs, waiting tenantless all round it, two larger ones with high carved backs at either end.