count--that from that room
had originated the mechanism of the phenomena--if I may use the
term--which had been experienced in my chamber. And though I entered it
now in the clear day, with the sun peering through the filmy window I
still felt, as I stood on its floor, the creep of the horror which I had
first there experienced the night before, and which had been so
aggravated by what had passed in my own chamber. I could not, indeed,
bear to stay more than half a minute within those walls. I descended the
stairs, and again I heard the footfall before me; and when I opened the
street door, I thought I could distinguish a very low laugh. I gained my
own home, expecting to find my runaway servant there. But he had not
presented himself; nor did I hear more of him for three days, when I
received a letter from him, dated from Liverpool to this effect:--

"HONORED SIR,--I humbly entreat your pardon,
though I can scarcely hope that you will think I
deserve it, unless--which Heaven forbid--you saw
what I did. I feel that it will be years before
I can recover myself: and as to being fit for
service, it is out of the question. I am therefore
going to my brother-in-law at Melbourne. The ship
sails to-morrow. Perhaps the long voyage may set
me up. I do nothing now but start and tremble, and
fancy IT is behind me. I humbly beg you, honored
sir, to order my clothes, and whatever wages are
due to me, to be sent to my mother's, at
Walworth.--John knows her address."

The letter ended with additional apologies, somewhat incoherent, and
explanatory details as to effects that had been under the writer's
charge.

This flight may perhaps warrant a suspicion that the man wished to go to
Australia, and had been somehow or other fraudulently mixed up with the
events of the night. I say nothing in refutation of that conjecture;
rather, I suggest it as one that would seem to many persons the most
probable solution of improbable occurrences. My belief in my own theory
remained unshaken. I returned in the evening to the house, to bring away
in a hack cab the things I had left there, with my poor dog's body. In
this task I was not disturbed, nor did any incident worth note befall
me, except that still, on ascending and descending the stairs, I heard
the same footfall in advance. On leaving the house, I went to Mr.