ry cautiously, with my
heart in my mouth, I moved from room to room, halting every now and then
in dreadful suspense as the wind, soughing through across the open land
behind the house, blew down the chimneys and set the window-frames
jarring. At the commencement of one of the passages I was immeasurably
startled to see a dark shape poke forward, and then spring hurriedly
back, and was so frightened that I dared not advance to see what it was.
Moment after moment sped by, and I still stood there, the cold sweat
oozing out all over me, and my eyes fixed in hideous expectation on the
blank wall. What was it? What was hiding there? Would it spring out on
me if I went to see? At last, urged on by a fascination I found
impossible to resist, I crept down the passage, my heart throbbing
painfully and my whole being overcome with the most sickly
anticipations. As I drew nearer to the spot, it was as much as I could
do to breathe, and my respiration came in quick jerks and gasps. Six,
five, four, two feet and I was at the dreaded angle. Another step--taken
after the most prodigious battle--and--NOTHING sprang out on me. I was
confronted only with a large piece of paper that had come loose from the
wall, and flapped backwards and forwards each time the breeze from
without rustled past it. The reaction after such an agony of suspense
was so great, that I leaned against the wall, and laughed till I cried.
A noise, from somewhere away in the basement, calling me to myself, I
went downstairs and investigated. Again a shock--this time more sudden,
more acute. Pressed against the window-pane of one of the front
reception-rooms was the face of a man--with corpse-like cheeks and pale,
malevolent eyes. I was petrified--every drop of my blood was congealed.
My tongue glued to my mouth, my arms hung helpless. I stood in the
doorway and stared at it. This went on for what seemed to me an
eternity. Then came a revelation. The face was not that of a ghost but
of Mr. Baldwin, who, getting alarmed at my long absence, had come to
look for me.

We left the premises together. All the way back to the town I
thought--should I, or should I not, take the house? Seen as I had seen
it, it was a ghoulish-looking place--as weird as a Paris catacomb--but
then daylight makes all the difference. Viewed in the sunshine, it would
be just like any other house--plain bricks and mortar. I liked the
situation; it was just far enough away from a town to enable me to