e. I am not much affected by visible danger, but this silent
room, with its air of sinister expectancy, struck me most unpleasantly,
and I was about to reconsider my first impulse and withdraw again to the
road, when a second look, thrown back upon the comfortable interior I
was leaving, convinced me of my folly and sent me straight toward the
door which stood so invitingly open.

But half-way up the path, my progress was again stayed by the sight of a
man issuing from the house I had so rashly looked upon as devoid of all
human presence. He seemed in haste and, at the moment my eye first fell
on him, was engaged in replacing his watch in his pocket.

But he did not shut the door behind him, which I thought odd, especially
as his final glance had been a backward one, and seemed to take in all
the appointments of the place he was so hurriedly leaving.

As we met, he raised his hat. This likewise struck me as peculiar, for
the deference he displayed was more marked than that usually bestowed on
strangers, while his lack of surprise at an encounter more or less
startling in such a mist was calculated to puzzle an ordinary man like
myself. Indeed, he was so little impressed by my presence there that he
was for passing me without a word or any other hint of good fellowship,
save the bow of which I have spoken. But this did not suit me. I was
hungry, cold, and eager for creature comforts, and the house before me
gave forth not only heat, but a savory odor which in itself was an
invitation hard to ignore. I therefore accosted the man.

"Will bed and supper be provided me here?" I asked. "I am tired out with
a long tramp over the hills, and hungry enough to pay anything in
reason--"

I stopped, for the man had disappeared. He had not paused at my appeal
and the mist had swallowed him. But at the break in my sentence, his
voice came back in good-natured tones and I heard:

"Supper will be ready at nine, and there are beds for all. Enter, sir;
you are the first to arrive, but the others can not be far behind."

A queer greeting, certainly. But when I strove to question him as to its
meaning, his voice returned to me from such a distance that I doubted if
my words had reached him with any more distinctness than his answer
reached me.

"Well!" thought I, "it isn't as if a lodging had been denied me. He
invited me to enter, and enter I will."

The house, to which I now naturally directed a glance of much more
careful scrut