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 him made him pause. Smoke
leaped down from his knee and moved forward 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 take place,
since neither doors nor windows, nor any other solid barriers could