n Silence sat and waited, keenly on the
alert, wondering how soon the attack would be renewed, and at what point
it would be diverted from the animals and directed upon himself.

The book lay on the floor beside him, his notes were complete. With one
hand on the cat's fur, and the dog's front paws resting against his
feet, the three of them dozed comfortably before the hot fire while the
night wore on and the silence deepened towards midnight.

It was well after one o'clock in the morning when Dr. Silence turned the
lamp out and lighted the candle preparatory to going up to bed. Then
Smoke suddenly woke with a loud sharp purr and sat up. It neither
stretched, washed nor turned: it listened. And the doctor, watching it,
realized that a certain indefinable change had come about that very
moment in the room. A swift readjustment of the forces within the four
walls had taken place--a new disposition of their personal equations.
The balance was destroyed, the former harmony gone. Smoke, most
sensitive of barometers, had been the first to feel it, but the dog was
not slow to follow suit, for on looking down he noted that Flame was no
longer asleep. He was lying with eyes wide open, and that same instant
he sat up on his great haunches and began to growl.

Dr. Silence was in the act of taking the matches to re-light the lamp
when an audible movement in the room behind made him pause. Smoke leaped
down from his knee and moved a few paces across the carpet. Then it
stopped and stared fixedly; and the doctor stood up on the rug to watch.

As he rose the sound was repeated, and he discovered that it was not in
the room as he first thought, but outside, and that it came from more
directions than one. There was a rushing, sweeping noise against the
window-panes, and simultaneously a sound of something brushing against
the door--out in the hall. Smoke advanced sedately across the carpet,
twitching his tail, and sat down within a foot of the door. The
influence that had destroyed the harmonious conditions of the room had
apparently moved in advance of its cause. Clearly, something was about
to happen.

For the first time that night John Silence hesitated; the thought of
that dark narrow hall-way, choked with fog, and destitute of human
comfort, was unpleasant. He became aware of a faint creeping of his
flesh. He knew, of course, that the actual opening of the door was not
necessary to the invasion of the room that was about to tak