rough the cracks
between the rafters.

I turned in early that night. Though it was calm and there was no wind,
the creaking of my bedstead and the musical gurgle of the water over the
rocks below were not the only sounds that reached my ears. As I lay
awake, the appalling emptiness of the house grew upon me. The corridors
and vacant rooms seemed to echo innumerable footsteps, shufflings, the
rustle of skirts, and a constant undertone of whispering. When sleep at
length overtook me, the breathings and noises, however, passed gently to
mingle with the voices of my dreams.

A week passed by, and the "reading" progressed favourably. On the tenth
day of my solitude, a strange thing happened. I awoke after a good
night's sleep to find myself possessed with a marked repugnance for my
room. The air seemed to stifle me. The more I tried to define the cause
of this dislike, the more unreasonable it appeared. There was something
about the room that made me afraid. Absurd as it seems, this feeling
clung to me obstinately while dressing, and more than once I caught
myself shivering, and conscious of an inclination to get out of the room
as quickly as possible. The more I tried to laugh it away, the more real
it became; and when at last I was dressed, and went out into the
passage, and downstairs into the kitchen, it was with feelings of
relief, such as I might imagine would accompany one's escape from the
presence of a dangerous contagious disease.

While cooking my breakfast, I carefully recalled every night spent in
the room, in the hope that I might in some way connect the dislike I now
felt with some disagreeable incident that had occurred in it. But the
only thing I could recall was one stormy night when I suddenly awoke and
heard the boards creaking so loudly in the corridor that I was convinced
there were people in the house. So certain was I of this, that I had
descended the stairs, gun in hand, only to find the doors and windows
securely fastened, and the mice and black-beetles in sole possession of
the floor. This was certainly not sufficient to account for the strength
of my feelings.

The morning hours I spent in steady reading; and when I broke off in the
middle of the day for a swim and luncheon, I was very much surprised,
if not a little alarmed, to find that my dislike for the room had, if
anything, grown stronger. Going upstairs to get a book, I experienced
the most marked aversion to entering the room, and whil