prints in the snow were so fresh that they seemed not quite motionless,
as if the snow were only now settling after the pressure it had just
suffered. The man slackened his pace. He did not like the sound which
he heard. He began to feel as if he by whom it was made would not prove
a companion to his taste. Yet his curiosity continued. There began within
him a struggle between his curiosity and another sensation, which was
of repugnance, almost of fear. And so equal were the combatants that
the lights of the village were in sight, and he had not decreased the
distance between himself and the other. Seeing the lights, however, his
curiosity got the upper hand. He slightly quickened his pace, and almost
immediately beheld the shape of a man relieved against the night, and
treading onward through the snow. And as the sound of the footsteps had
been disagreeable to his nerves, so the contours of the moving blackness
repelled him. He did not like the look of this man whose footprints were
the same as his own, and he decided not to join him. But, moving rather
cautiously, he gained a little upon him, in order to make sure, if
possible, whether or not he was a neighbor or an acquaintance.

The figure seemed somehow familiar to our man, indeed, oddly familiar.
Nevertheless, he was unable to identify it. As he followed it, more and
more certain did he become that he had seen it, that he knew it. And
yet--did he know it? Had he seen it? It was almost as if one part of him
denied while the other affirmed. He longed, yet feared, to see the face.
But the face never looked back. And so, one at a little distance behind
the other, they came into the village.

Here a strange thing occurred.

There were very few people about, but there were a few, and two or
three of them, meeting the person our man was following, greeted him