breathing. For fully ten minutes we two remained thus, each
momentarily expecting a repetition of the ringing, or the coming of
some new and more sinister manifestation. But we heard nothing and saw
nothing.

"Hand me that grip, and don't stir until I come back!" hissed Smith in
my ear.

He turned and walked out of the library, his boots creaking very
loudly in that awe-inspiring silence.

Standing beside the table, I watched the open door for his return,
crushing down a dread that _another_ form than his might suddenly
appear there.

I could hear him moving from room to room, and presently, as I waited
in hushed, tense watchfulness, he came in, depositing the grip upon
the table. His eyes were gleaming feverishly.

"The house is haunted, Pearce!" he cried. "But no ghost ever
frightened _me_! Come, I will show you your room."

CHAPTER XXVI

THE FIERY HAND

Smith walked ahead of me upstairs; he had snapped up the light in the
hall-way, and now he turned and cried back loudly:

"I fear we should never get servants to stay here."

Again I detected the appeal to a hidden Audience; and there was
something very uncanny in the idea. The house now was deathly still;
the ringing had entirely subsided. In the upper corridor my companion,
who seemed to be well acquainted with the position of the switches,
again turned up all the lights, and in pursuit of the strange comedy
which he saw fit to enact, addressed me continuously in the loud and
unnatural voice which he had adopted as part of his disguise.

We looked into a number of rooms all well and comfortably furnished,
but although my imagination may have been responsible for the idea,
they all seemed to possess a chilly and repellent atmosphere. I felt
that to essay sleep in any one of them would be the merest farce, that
the place to all intents and purposes was uninhabitable, that
something incalculably evil presided over the house.

And through it all, so obtuse was I that no glimmer of the truth
entered my mind. Outside again in the long, brightly lighted corridor,
we stood for a moment as if a mutual anticipation of some new event
pending had come to us. It was curious--that sudden pulling up and
silent questioning of one another; because, although we acted thus, no
sound had reached us. A few seconds later our anticipation was
realized. From the direction of the stairs it came--a low wailing in a
woman's voice; and the sweetness of the tones added