ight across it from an open
door.

A man who has once felt it knows there is only one kind of silence
that can fitly be called "dead." This is only to be found in a great
house at midnight. I declare that for a few seconds after I rattled
the stair-rod you might have cut the silence with a knife. If the
house held a clock it ticked inaudibly.

Upon this silence, at the end of a minute, broke a light sound--the
_clink, clink_ of a decanter on the rim of a wine-glass. It came from
the room where the light was.

Now, perhaps it was that the very thought of liquor put warmth into my
cold bones. It is certain that all of a sudden I straightened my back,
took the remaining stairs at two strides, and walked down the passage,
as bold as brass, with out caring a jot for the noise I made.

In the doorway I halted. The room was long, lined for the most part
with books bound in what they call "divinity calf," and littered with
papers like a barrister's table on assize day. Before the fireplace,
where a few coals burned sulkily, was drawn a leathern elbow chair,
and beside it, on the corner of a writing-table, were set an unlit
candle and a pile of manuscripts. At the opposite end of the room a
curtained door led (I guessed) to the chamber that I had first seen
illuminated. All this I took in with the tail of my eye, while staring
straight in front, where, in the middle of a great square of carpet
between me and the windows, was a table with a red cloth upon it.
On this cloth were a couple of wax candles, lit, in silver stands, a
tray, and a decanter three parts full of brandy. And between me and
the table stood a man.

He stood sideways, leaning a little back, as if to keep his shadow off
the threshold, and looked at me over his left shoulder--a bald, grave
man, slightly under the common height, with a long clerical coat of
preposterous fit hanging loosely from his shoulders, a white cravat,
black breeches, and black stockings. His feet were loosely thrust into
carpet-slippers. I judged his age at fifty, or thereabouts; but his
face rested in the shadow, and I could only note a pair of eyes, very
small and alert, twinkling above a large expanse of cheek.

He was lifting a wine-glass from the table at the moment when I
appeared, and it trembled now in his right hand. I heard a spilt drop
or two fall on the carpet, and this was all the evidence he showed of
discomposure.

Setting the glass back, he felt in his breast-pocket