be on his way home by the lane that
skirted the privet hedge. I must wait till all were sleeping. The time
seemed very long. Once I fancied I heard a movement in the house--again
I dreamed that soft and hurried footsteps upon the gravel outside broke
on the silence. But I said to myself that I was nervous, highly strung
because of my strange project, that my imagination tricked me. At last
the hour came. Without going upstairs I drew on my thickest overcoat,
took my hat and a heavy stick, opened the hall door, and passed out into
the night. It was still and very cold, and the voice of the burn came
loudly to my ears. Treading quietly, I made my way into the road, and
set forth along it in the direction of the Manse. The ground was hard,
and scarcely had I gone a few yards before I thought that some one was
furtively following me. I stopped rather uneasily, and listened, but
heard nothing. I went on, and again seemed aware of distant footsteps
treading gently behind me. The sound made me suppose that some one of my
household must be after me, moved by curiosity as to the reason of my
present pilgrimage; but I was not minded to be watched, so I turned
sharply, yet very softly, around and faced the way I had come. I
encountered no one, nor did I any longer catch the patter of feet. So,
reckoning that my nerves must be playing with me, I pursued my way. But
the whole of the distance between my dwelling and the Manse I seemed
vaguely to hear a noise of one treading behind me. And, although I said
to myself that there was nobody out beside myself, I was filled with the
stir of a shifting uneasiness. I entered the lonely and narrow lane that
led beside the Manse, and presently arrived in front of the house; when,
what was my astonishment to perceive a light gleaming in the study
window. My hand was on the gate when it went out, and all the front of
the house was black and eyeless. For so brief a moment had I seen the
light that I was moved to think that it, too, existed, like the sound of
steps, only in my excited brain. Nevertheless, I did not go up at once
to the house, but paced the lane for a full half-hour, always--so it
seemed to me--tracked by some one. But, since I kept turning about, and
the footfalls were always at my back, I grew certain that they were
nothing more nor less than a fantasy on my part. It must have been well
after twelve when I summoned courage to enter the garden and to approach
the Manse. The steps,