then mood, I could have wished it a great deal more modern. Its four
posts were, like the rest of it, oak, well-nigh black, fantastically
turned and carved, with a great urn-like capital and base, and shaped
midway, like a gigantic lance-handle. Its curtains were of thick and
faded tapestry. I was always a lover of such antiquities, but I confess
at that moment I would have vastly preferred a sprightly modern chintz
and a trumpery little French bed in a corner of the Brandon Arms. There
was a great lowering press of oak, and some shelves, with withered green
and gold leather borders. All the furniture belonged to other times.

I would have been glad to hear a step stirring, or a cough even, or the
gabble of servants at a distance. But there was a silence and desertion
in this part of the mansion which, somehow, made me feel that I was
myself a solitary intruder on this level of the vast old house.

I shan't trouble you about my train of thoughts or fancies; but I began
to feel very like a gentleman in a ghost story, watching experimentally
in a haunted chamber. My cigar case was a resource. I was not a bit
afraid of being found out. I did not even take the precaution of smoking
up the chimney. I boldly lighted my cheroot. I peeped through the dense
window curtain there were no shutters. A cold, bright moon was shining
with clear sharp lights and shadows. Everything looked strangely cold and
motionless outside. The sombre old trees, like gigantic hearse plumes,
black and awful. The chapel lay full in view, where so many of the,
strange and equivocal race, under whose ancient roof-tree I then stood,
were lying under their tombstones.

Somehow, I had grown nervous. A little bit of plaster tumbled down the
chimney, and startled me confoundedly. Then some time after, I fancied I
heard a creaking step on the lobby outside, and, candle in hand, opened