It was on the stroke of midnight when they entered a small room on the third floor, close to the top of the stairs, and arranged to make themselves comfortable for the remainder of their adventure.  It was absolutely bare, and was said to be the room—­then used as a clothes closet—­into which the infuriated groom had chased his victim and finally caught her.  Outside, across the narrow landing, began the stairs leading up to the floor above, and the servants’ quarters where they had just searched.

In spite of the chilliness of the night there was something in the air of this room that cried for an open window.  But there was more than this.  Shorthouse could only describe it by saying that he felt less master of himself here than in any other part of the house.  There was something that acted directly on the nerves, tiring the resolution, enfeebling the will.  He was conscious of this result before he had been in the room five minutes, and it was in the short time they stayed there that he suffered the wholesale depletion of his vital forces, which was, for himself, the chief horror of the whole experience.

They put the candle on the floor of the cupboard, leaving the door a few inches ajar, so that there was no glare to confuse the eyes, and no shadow to shift about on walls and ceiling.  Then they spread the cloak on the floor and sat down to wait, with their backs against the wall.

Shorthouse was within two feet of the door on to the landing; his position commanded a good view of the main staircase leading down into the darkness, and also of the beginning of the servants’ stairs going to the floor above; the heavy stick lay beside him within easy reach.

The moon was now high above the house.  Through the open window they could see the comforting stars like friendly eyes watching in the sky.  One by one the clocks of the town struck midnight, and when the sounds died away the deep silence of a windless night fell again over everything.  Only the boom of the sea, far away and lugubrious, filled the air with hollow murmurs.

Inside the house the silence became awful; awful, he thought, because any minute now it might be broken by sounds portending terror.  The strain of waiting told more and more severely on the nerves; they talked in whispers when they talked at all, for their voices aloud sounded queer and unnatural.  A chilliness, not altogether due to the night air, invaded the room, and made them cold.  The influences against them, whatever these might be, were slowly robbing them of self-confidence, and the power of decisive action; their forces were on the wane, and the possibility of real fear took on a new and terrible meaning.  He began to tremble for the elderly woman by his side, whose pluck could hardly save her beyond a certain extent.