? The man asked himself, and came to a resolve
not to follow on into the darkness of the open country, not to proceed
beyond his own home, of which now he saw the lights, but to make an
effort to see the face of the other before the garden gate was reached.

In this attempt, however, he was destined to be frustrated. For as he
determinedly quickened his steps, so did the other, who gained the gate
of the garden, unlatched it, turned in, and walked on among the trees
going toward the principal door.

A visitor, then! The man paused by his garden gate, whence he could see
his house front, with the light from the window of his own sitting-room
streaming over the porch. The stranger stood before it, made a movement
as if searching in his pocket, drew out his hand, lifted it. The door
opened at once. He disappeared within, and the door closed after him.

He had opened the door with a key.

The man at the gate felt overcome by a sensation almost of horror,
which he could not explain to himself. It was not that he was horrified
by the certainly extraordinary fact of some one possessing a key to his
house, and using it in this familiar fashion. It was not even that he
was horrified at seeing a man, perhaps a stranger, disappearing thus
into his home by night, uninvited, unexpected. What horrified him was
that this particular man, whose footprints he had followed and measured
with his foot, whose footfalls he had heard, whose form he had seen
outlined against the night, should be within his house, where his wife
and his children were, and where his venerable mother was sitting beside
the fire. That this man should be there! He knew now that from the first
moment when he had been aware of his existence he had hated him, that his
subconscious mind had hated him.

But who was he? The natural thing would have been to follow quickly into
the house, to see who had entered, to demand an explanation. But he could
not do this. Why? He himself did not know why. But he knew that he dared
not do this. And he waited, expecting he knew not what; a cry, a summons,
perhaps, some manifestation that would force him to approach.

None came. Steadily the lights shone from the house. There was no sound
but the soft fall of a block of snow from an overladen fir branch in the
garden. The man began to marvel. Who could this be whose familiar entry
into his--_his_ home thus at night caused no disturbance? There were dogs
within: they had not barked