so, he seemed to hear cautious steps across a bare floor above. He
stopped climbing; the steps ceased. He started up, and the steps came
again. He knew now they came from a room at the head of the stairs. He
bounded up the remaining steps and pushed open the door with a loud
"Halloo!"

The room was empty. Yet across it there was the indefinable trail of a
presence,--an odour, a vibration, he knew not what,--and where a bar of
sunlight cut the gloom under a half-raised curtain, he saw the motes in
the air all astir. Opposite the door he had opened was another, leading,
apparently, to a room at the back of the house. From behind it, he could
have sworn came the sounds of a stealthily moved body and softened
breathing. A presence, unseen but felt, was all about. Not without
effort did he conquer the impulse to look behind him at every breath.

Determined to be no longer eluded, he crossed the room on tiptoe and
gently tried the opposite door. It was locked. As he leaned against it,
almost in a terror of suspense, he knew he heard again those little
seemings of a presence a door's thickness away. He did not hesitate.
Still holding the turned knob in his hand, he quickly crouched back and
brought his flexed shoulder heavily against the door. It flew open with
a breaking sound, and, with a little gasp of triumph, he was in the room
to confront its unknown occupant.

To his dismay, he saw no one. He peered in bewilderment to the farther
side of the room, where light struggled dimly in at the sides of a
curtained window. There was no sound, and yet he could acutely feel that
presence; insistently his nerves tingled the warning of another's
nearness. Leaning forward, still peering to sound the dim corners of the
room, he called out again.