bout to
emerge at the top, a serving-girl was coming out of a room on the
opposite side. She instantly retreated, shut the door with a bang, and
I could hear a half-suppressed hysterical cry. I bounded on, sprang up
the drawing-room stair, and entered the first door at a venture. All
was dark, and I stopped for a moment to listen. Lights were hurrying
across the hall; and I heard the rough voice of a man as if scolding
and taunting some person. The girl had doubtless given the alarm,
although her information must have been very indistinct; for when she
saw me I was in the shadow of the stair, and she could have had little
more than a vague impression that she beheld a human figure. However
this may be, the man's voice appeared to descend the stair to the
area-room, and presently I heard a crashing noise, not as if he was
counting the plate, but rather thrusting it aside _en masse_. Then I
heard the window closed, the shutters bolted, and an alarm-bell hung
upon them, and the man reascended the stair, half scolding, half
laughing at the girl's superstition. He took care notwithstanding to
examine the fastenings of the street-door, and even to lock it, and
put the key in his pocket. He then retired into a room, and all was
silence.

I began to feel pretty considerably queer. The governor kept no male
servant that I knew of, and had never done so. It was impossible he
could have introduced this change into his household without my being
informed of it by sister Laura, whose letters were an exact chronicle
of everything, down to the health of the cat. This was puzzling. And
now that I had time to think, the house was much too large for a
family requiring only three sleeping-rooms even when I was at home. It
was what is called a double house, with rooms on both sides of the
hall; and the apartment on the threshold of which I was still
lingering appeared, from the dim light of the windows, to be of very
considerable size. I now recollected that the quantity of plate I had
seen--a portion of which at this moment felt preternaturally heavy in
my pockets--must have been three times greater than any the governor
ever possessed, and that various pieces were of a size and massiveness
I had never before seen in the establishment. In vain I bethought
myself that I had seen and recognised the well-known door-plate, and
that the area from which I entered was immediately under; in vain I
argued that since Laura was about to be married,