approach it, yet could not forbear surveying it long
and earnestly. Could it be possible that those curtains concealed
some one in hiding behind them? Strange to say I did not feel
quite ready to lay hand on them and see.

A dressing table laden with woman's fixings and various articles of
the toilet, all of an unexpected value and richness, occupied the
space between the two windows; and on the floor, immediately in
front of a high mahogany mantel, there lay, amid a number of empty
boxes, an overturned chair. This chair and the conjectures its
position awakened led me to look up at the mantel with which it
seemed to be in some way connected, and thus I became aware of a
wan old drawing hanging on the wall above it. Why this picture,
which was a totally uninteresting sketch of a simpering girl face,
should have held my eye after the first glance, I can not say even
now. It had no beauty even of the sentimental kind and very little,
if any, meaning. Its lines, weak at the best, were nearly
obliterated and in some places quite faded out. Yet I not only
paused to look at it, but in looking at it forgot myself and
well-nigh my errand. Yet there was no apparent reason for the spell
it exerted over me, nor could I account in any way for the really
superstitious dread which from this moment seized me, making my
head move slowly round with shrinking backward looks as that swaying
shutter creaked or some of the fitful noises, which grow out of
silence in answer to our inner expectancy, drew my attention or
appalled my sense.

To all appearance there was less here than below to affect a man's
courage. No inanimate body with the mark of the slayer upon it lent
horror to these walls; yet sensations which I had easily overcome in
the library below clung with strange insistence to me here, making
it an effort for me to move, and giving to the unexpected reflection
of my own image in the mirror I chanced to pass, a power to shock my
nerves which has never been repeated in my experience.

It may seem both unnecessary and out of character for a man of my
calling to acknowledge these chance sensations, but only by doing so
can I account for the minutes which elapsed before I summoned
sufficient self-possession to draw aside the closed curtains of the
bed and take the quick look inside which my present doubtful position
demanded. But once I had broken the spell and taken the look just
mentioned, I found my manhood return and