the steps of him who had so
lately preceded me, I came upon a tightly closed door at the end
of aside passage, I own that I stopped a moment before lifting hand
to it. So much may lie behind a tightly closed door! But my
hesitation, if hesitation it was, lasted but a moment. My natural
impatience and the promptings of my vanity overcame the dictates
of my judgment, and, reckless of consequences, perhaps disdainful
of them, I soon had the knob in my grasp. I gave a slight push to
the door and, on seeing a crack of light leap into life along the
jamb, pushed the door wider and wider till the whole room stood
revealed.

The instantaneous banging of a shutter in one of its windows proved
the room to be the very one which we had seen lighted from below.
Otherwise all was still; nor was I able to detect, in my first
hurried glance, any other token of human presence than a candle
sputtering in its own grease at the bottom of a tumbler placed on
one corner of, an old-fashioned dressing table. This, the one
touch of incongruity in a room otherwise rich if not stately in
its appointments, was loud in its suggestion of some hidden
presence given to expedients and reckless of consequences; but of
this presence nothing was to be seen.

Not satisfied with this short survey,-a survey which had given me
the impression of a spacious old-fashioned chamber, fully furnished
but breathing of the by-gone rather than of the present--and
resolved to know the worst, or, rather, to dare the worst and be
done with it, I strode straight into the center of the room and
cast about me quickly a comprehensive glance which spared nothing,
not even the shadows lurking in the corners. But no low-lying
figure started up from those corners, nor did any crouching head
rise into sight from beyond the leaves of the big screen behind
which I was careful to look.

Greatly reassured, and indeed quite convinced that wherever the
criminal lurked at that moment he was not in the same room with me,
I turned my attention to my surroundings, which had many points of
interest. Foremost among these was the big four-poster which
occupied a large space at my right. I had never seen its like in
use before, and I was greatly attracted by its size and the air of
mystery imparted to it by its closely drawn curtains of faded
brocade. In fact, this bed, whether from its appearance or some
occult influence inherent in it, had a fascination for me. I
hesitated to