"I lifted the knocker, but it came off in my hand. Angry at the mischance, and perhaps a little moved by the excitement of my position, I raised the broken piece of iron and gave a thundering knock on the rotten panels before me. Instantly the door opened, creaking ominously as it did so, and a man stood in the gap with a[17] wretched old kerosene lamp in his hand. The apologetic leer on his evil countenance did not for a moment deceive me. [17] "'I beg your pardon,' he hurriedly exclaimed, and his voice showed he was a man of education, notwithstanding his forlorn and wretched appearance, 'but the old woman had a turn just as you came, and I could not leave her.' "I looked at him, and instinct told me to quit the spot and not enter a house so vilely guarded. For the man was not only uncouth to the last degree in dress and aspect, but sinister in expression and servilely eager in bearing. "'Won't you come in?' he urged. 'The old woman is past talking, but she can make signs; perhaps an hour from now she will not be able to do even that.' "'Do you allude to the woman who wishes to make her will?' I asked. "'Yes,' he answered, greedily, 'Cynthia Wakeham, my sister.' And he gently pushed the door in a way that forced me to enter or show myself a coward. "I took heart and went in. What poverty I beheld before me in the light of that solitary smoking lamp! If the exterior of the house bore the marks of devastation, what shall I say of the barren halls and denuded rooms which now opened before me? Not a chair greeted my eyes, though a toppling stool here and there showed that people sat in this place. Nor did I see a table, though somewhere in some remote region beyond the staircase I[18] heard the clatter of plates, as if eating were also known in this home of almost ostentatious penury. Staircase I say, but I should have said steps, for the balustrades were missing here just as they had been missing without, and not even a rail remained to speak of old-time comfort and prosperity. [18] "'I am very poor,' humbly remarked the man, answering my look of perplexity. 'It is my sister who has the money.' And moving towards the stairs, he motioned me to ascend. "Even then I recoiled, not knowing what to make of this adventure; but hearing a hollow groan from above, uttered in tones unmistakably
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