I gathered up the fragments of Morgan's lantern and
went back to the library. The lights in half the candlesticks
had sputtered out. I extinguished the remainder
and started to my room.
Then, in the great dark hall, I heard a muffled tread
as of some one following me,-not on the great staircase,
nor in any place I could identify,-yet unmistakably
on steps of some sort beneath or above me. My
nerves were already keyed to a breaking pitch, and the
ghost-like tread in the hall angered me-Morgan, or his
ally, Bates, I reflected, at some new trick. I ran into my
room, found a heavy walking-stick and set off for Bates'
room on the third floor. It was always easy to attribute
any sort of mischief to the fellow, and undoubtedly he
was crawling through the house somewhere on an errand
that boded no good to me.
It was now past two o'clock and he should have been
asleep and out of the way long ago. I crept to his room
and threw open the door without, I must say, the slightest
idea of finding him there. But Bates, the enigma,
Bates, the incomparable cook, the perfect servant, sat at
a table, the light of several candles falling on a book
over which he was bent with that maddening gravity
he had never yet in my presence thrown off.
He rose at once, stood at attention, inclining his head
slightly.
"Yes, Mr. Glenarm."
"Yes, the devil!" I roared at him, astonished at
finding him,-sorry, I must say, that he was there. The
stick fell from my hands. I did not doubt he knew
perfectly well that I had some purpose in breaking in
upon him. I was baffled and in my rage floundered
for words to explain myself.
"I thought I heard some one in the house. I don't
want you prowling about in the night, do you hear?"
"Certainly not, sir," he replied in a grieved tone.
I glanced at the book he had been reading. It was a
volume of Shakespeare's comedies, open at the first
scene of the last act of The Winter's Tale.
"Quite a pretty bit of work that, I should say," he
remarked. "It was one of my late master's favorites."
"Go to the devil!" I bawled at him, and went down
to my room and slammed the door in rage and chagrin.