marvel of the neighbourhood.

Now he sat there at dead midnight in absolute solitude. Not a soul was within call; the nearest habitations were two or three labourers’ cottages on the further side of a wooded hill. His thoughts were of the past, and they were not pleasant, those of the past seldom are. A couple of pipes were on the table at his elbow, and a tobacco jar—likewise a square whisky bottle, a syphon and a tumbler, but of this he had partaken but little. But somehow he felt his solitude to-night as he had never felt it since he had entered on possession. To-night he felt he would have given something for human companionship in almost any shape. The winter wind howled without, not loud but inexpressibly dismal. And he sat, and—looked.

Looked! At what?

In a corner of the room was a door—a massive door. It had a curious old-world, wrought-iron handle. And at this he was looking—gazing, in fact, more than intently. Was it slowly turning?

He could have sworn that it was. Well, what, then? The door was securely locked, the key was in a very safe place. And the door led nowhere and from nowhere. It led, in fact, to a vault-like underground cellar whose solid walls were totally devoid of outlet. When he had entered on possession he had exhaustively verified this, and having thus satisfied himself had laughed all the startling and shadowy possibilities which popular report ascribed to the place to utter scorn. And yet, now to-night, he could have sworn that the handle of this door was slowly turning.

To anybody less sceptical—less unaffectedly and wholesouledly sceptical—there was that in the conviction which would have set up a blood-chilling, hair-raising effect. The utter loneliness of the place, the midnight sounds, the moaning of the doleful winter wind, the crackings and creakings of the ghostly old house, the dreadful legends that centred round that very vault, of which the movement of this very door handle was a preliminary incident—would have been sufficient to have driven out such into the pitiless winter night rather than remain sitting there—on the watch.

On the watch—for what? Could a spectral hand undo that lock? Then the watcher rubbed his eyes and looked again. Certainly the handle had turned. Its broad iron loop had been horizontal before, now it was at an angle of forty-five. Of that he was as sure as that he was alive and sitting there. And then he remembered that—this was the night.

It doesn’t 

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