evident that the night, which was very still, was going to be very dark.
And the man stepped out briskly. Presently, at a lonely part of the road,
happening to look down, he saw footprints in the freshly fallen snow.
They were of feet that had recently passed on the way he was following.
They had attracted, they continued to attract, his attention, he knew not
why. And as he went on, his eyes were often upon them.

Presently he began to wonder about the feet which had made the prints he
saw. Did they belong to a man or a woman? The prints were too large to
have been made by the feet of a child. He gazed at them searchingly, and
made up his mind that it was a man who had recently trodden this road.
And what sort of man was it that thus preceded him not very far away? He
became deeply engrossed with this question. His mind revolved about this
unknown traveler, floating forward in surmises, till, by chance, he
happened to set his right foot in one of the prints left in the snow.
His foot exactly filled it. This fact, he knew not why, startled him.
He stopped, bent down, examined the snow closely, measured very carefully
his feet with the prints before him, now rather faintly discerned in
the gathering darkness. The prints might have been made by his own feet.
Having ascertained this, and reflected for a moment, he went forward, now
assailed by a growing curiosity as to the personality and character of
the stranger. But perhaps he was not a stranger. He might surely well be
a neighbor, an acquaintance, perhaps even a friend. The man meant, if
possible, to come up with him, whoever he was, and he now hurried along
with the intention of joining the unknown whose footprints were the same
as his own.

At this point in his sermon Chichester paused for a moment. And
Malling, who seldom felt any thrill at a séance, and who had often
remained calmly watchful and alert during manifestations which amazed