toward the other end, discovering the box he sought as soon as his back
was turned to the light. In the same breath this last went out.

He stood for a moment transfixed in astonishment. There were no windows
open, no draughts that he could feel, nothing to account for the flame
expiring as it had, suddenly, without one flicker of warning. An insane
thing to happen to one, at such an hour, in such a place...

Involuntarily memory harked back to the night of his first dinner in
the château, when the shadows had danced so weirdly, and the strange
notion had come to him that they were like famished spectres, greedy of
the lights, yearning to spring and snatch and feed upon them, as wolves
might snatch at chops.

A mad fancy...

When he turned hack to relight the candle, it was gone.

At least he must have been mistaken as to the exact spot where he had
placed it. Perplexed, he pawed over all that end of the table. But no
candlestick was there.

He straightened up sharply, and stood quite still, listening. No sound...

His vision spent itself fruitlessly against the blackness, which the
closed window draperies rendered absolute but for those dull, sardonic
eyes of dying embers.

In spite of himself he knew a moment when flesh crawled and the hair
seemed to stir upon the scalp; for Duchemin knew he was not alone;