above the first.
After that, he made a thorough search of the room. It hardly repaid the
trouble, for he found nothing unusual. Yet he was glad he had made it.
It relieved him to find no one was in hiding under the bed or in the
deep oak cupboard; and he hoped sincerely it was not the cupboard in
which the unfortunate spaniel had come to its vile death. The French
windows, he discovered, opened on to a little balcony. It looked on to
the front, and there was a drop of less than twenty feet to the ground
below. The bed was high and wide, soft as feathers and covered with
snowy sheets--very inviting to a tired man; and beside the blazing fire
were a couple of deep armchairs.

Altogether it was very pleasant and comfortable; but, tired though he
was, Shorthouse had no intention of going to bed. It was impossible to
disregard the warning of his nerves. They had never failed him before,
and when that sense of distressing horror lodged in his bones he knew
there was something in the wind and that a red flag was flying over the
immediate future. Some delicate instrument in his being, more subtle
than the senses, more accurate than mere presentiment, had seen the red
flag and interpreted its meaning.

Again it seemed to him, as he sat in an armchair over the fire, that his
movements were being carefully watched from somewhere; and, not knowing
what weapons might be used against him, he felt that his real safety lay
in a rigid control of his mind and feelings and a stout refusal to admit
that he was in the least alarmed.

The house was very still. As the night wore on the wind dropped. Only
occasional bursts of sleet against the windows reminded him that the
elements were awake and uneasy. Once or twice the windows rattled and
the rain hissed in the fire, but the roar of the wind in the chimney
grew less and less and the lonely building was at last lapped in a great
stillness. The coals clicked, settling themselves deeper in the grate,
and the noise of the cinders dropping with a tiny report into the soft
heap of accumulated ashes was the only sound that punctuated the
silence.

In proportion as the power of sleep grew upon him the dread of the
situation lessened; but so imperceptibly, so gradually, and so
insinuatingly that he scarcely realised the change. He thought he was as
wide awake to his danger as ever. The successful exclusion of horrible
mental pictures of what he had seen he attributed to his rigorous
control, i