room.

"Sir Jeremy told me," I said, speaking as loudly and as heartily as I
could, "that he would apprise you of my coming."

I was looking into his face as I spoke.

In answer Horrod laid his finger across his lips and I knew that he was
deaf and dumb. I am not nervous (I think I said that), but the
realization that my sole companion in the empty house was a deaf mute
struck a cold chill to my heart.

Horrod laid in front of me a cold meat pie, a cold goose, a cheese, and
a tall flagon of cider. But my appetite was gone. I ate the goose, but
found that after I had finished the pie I had but little zest for the
cheese, which I finished without enjoyment. The cider had a sour taste,
and after having permitted Horrod to refill the flagon twice I found
that it induced a sense of melancholy and decided to drink no more.

My meal finished, the butler picked up the candle and beckoned me to
follow him. We passed through the empty corridors of the house, a long
line of pictured Buggams looking upon us as we passed, their portraits
in the flickering light of the taper assuming a strange and life-like
appearance, as if leaning forward from their frames to gaze upon the
intruder.

Horrod led me upstairs and I realized that he was taking me to the tower
in the east wing, in which I had observed a light.

The rooms to which the butler conducted me consisted of a sitting-room
with an adjoining bedroom, both of them fitted with antique wainscoting
against which a faded tapestry fluttered. There was a candle burning on
the table in the sitting-room, but its insufficient light only rendered
the surroundings the more dismal. Horrod bent down in front of the
fireplace and endeavoured to light a fire there. But the wood was
evidently damp and the fire flickered feebly on the hearth.

The butler left me, and in the stillness of the house I could hear his
shuffling step echo down the corridor. It may have been fancy, but it
seemed to me that his departure was the signal for a low moan that came
from somewhere behind the wainscot. There was a narrow cupboard door at
one side of the room, and for the moment I wondered whether the moaning
came from within. I am not as a rule lacking in courage (I am sure my
reader will be decent enough to believe this), yet I found myself
entirely unwilling to open the cupboard door and look within. In place
of doing so I seated myself in a great chair in front of the feeble
fire. I must have been s