at the fire, starting at a harsher gust of wind or any unaccustomed
sound. And for a long time there beat against her brain the shuffling,
searching tread of her uncle. Its cessation about eleven o'clock
increased her uneasiness. He had been so afraid! Suppose already the
thing he had feared had overtaken him? She listened intently. Even then
she seemed to sense the soundless footsteps of disaster straying in the
decayed house, and searching, too.

A morbid desire to satisfy herself that her uncle's silence meant
nothing evil drove her upstairs. She stood in the square main hall at the
head of the stairs, listening. Her uncle's bedroom door lay straight
ahead. To her right and left narrow corridors led to the wings. Her room
and Bobby's and a spare room were in the right-hand wing. The opposite
corridor was seldom used, for the left-hand wing was the oldest portion
of the house, and in the march of years too many legends had gathered
about it. The large bedroom was there with its private hall beyond, and a
narrow, enclosed staircase, descending to the library. Originally it had
been the custom for the head of the family to use that room. Its ancient
furniture still faded within stained walls. For many years no one had
slept in it, because it had sheltered too much suffering, because it had
witnessed the reluctant spiritual departure of too many Blackburns.

Katherine shrank a little from the black entrance of the corridor, but
her anxiety centred on the door ahead. She was about to call when a
stirring beyond it momentarily reassured her.

The door opened and her uncle stepped out. He wore an untidy
dressing-gown. His hair was disordered. His face appeared grayer and more
haggard than it had downstairs. A lighted candle shook in his right hand.