understand a word of this farrago."

"The short blond young man who came for his debt," returned the
other. "Him it is I mean. Who else should it be, when I had your
orders to admit no one else?"

"Why, good God, of course he never came," retorted Silas.

"I believe what I believe," returned the porter, putting his tongue
into his cheek with a most roguish air.

"You are an insolent scoundrel," cried Silas, and, feeling that he
had made a ridiculous exhibition of asperity, and at the same time
bewildered by a dozen alarms, he turned and began to run upstairs.

"Do you not want a light then?" cried the porter.

But Silas only hurried the faster, and did not pause until he had
reached the seventh landing and stood in front of his own door.
There he waited a moment to recover his breath, assailed by the
worst forebodings and almost dreading to enter the room.

When at last he did so he was relieved to find it dark, and to all
appearance, untenanted. He drew a long breath. Here he was, home
again in safety, and this should be his last folly as certainly as
it had been his first. The matches stood on a little table by the
bed, and he began to grope his way in that direction. As he moved,
his apprehensions grew upon him once more, and he was pleased, when
his foot encountered an obstacle, to find it nothing more alarming
than a chair. At last he touched curtains. From the position of