truckle bedstead, two chairs, and a washstand, but no attempt at
pictures or ornaments of any description. Evidently it was an
impromptu bedroom.

My entertainer in a few minutes kindled a cheerful fire upon the
old-fashioned stone hearth. Then, after arranging my bed and
placing my candle on the mantelpiece, he wished me a respectful
goodnight and withdrew. When he was gone I dragged one of the
chairs towards the fireplace, and sat down to enjoy the pleasant
flicker of the blaze. I ruminated upon the occurrences of the day,
and the possible history of the old house, whose sole occupant I
had thus strangely become. Now, I am of an inquisitive turn of mind,
and perhaps less apt than most men to be troubled with that
uncomfortable sensation which those people who are its victims
describe as nervousness, and those who are not, as cowardice.
Another in my place might have shrunk from doing what I presently
resolved to do, and that was to explore, before going to rest, at
least some part of this empty old house. Accordingly, I took up
my candle and walked out into the passage, leaving the door of my
room widely open, so that the firelight streamed full into the
entrance of the dark gallery, and served to guide me on my way
along it. When I had thus progressed for some twenty yards, I was
brought to a standstill by encountering a large red baize door,
which evidently shut off the wing in which my room was situated
from the rest of the mansion, and completely closed all egress from
the corridor where I then stood. I paused a moment or two in
uncertainty, for the door was locked; but presently my glance
fell on an old rusty key hanging from a nail, likewise rusty, in
a niche of the wall. I abstracted this key from its resting-place,
destroying as I did so the residences of a dozen spiders, which,