IT was now nearing eight o’clock, and as Dr. Izard strode on through the village streets, seeing no one and hearing no one, though more than one person respectfully accosted him, the twilight deepened so rapidly that it was quite dark when he passed the church and turned up the highroad to his own house.

It was dark and it was chilly, else why should so strong a man as he shiver? So dark that the monuments over the wall were hardly to be discerned, and he had to fumble for the gate he usually found without trouble. Yet when his hand finally fell upon it and he mechanically lifted the latch he did not pass through at once but lingered, almost with a coward’s hesitation, finding difficulty, as it seemed, in traversing the dismal path before him to the no less dismal door beyond and the solitude that there awaited him.

But he passed the gate at last, and groped his way along the path towards his home, though with lingering footsteps and frequent pauses. Dread was in his every movement, and when he stopped it was to clutch the wall at his side with one hand and to push the other out before him as though to ward off some threatening danger, or avert some expected advance. In this attitude he would become rigidly still, and several minutes would elapse before he stumbled on again. Finally he reached his door, and unlocking it with difficulty threw himself into the house, shuddering and uttering an involuntary cry as a spray of the swaying vine clung to him.

Ashamed of his weakness, for he presently saw what had caught him by the arm, he drew a deep breath, and tried to shut the door. But it would not close. Some obstruction, a trivial one no doubt, had interposed to stop it, and he being in an excited state pushed at it with looks of horror, till his strength conquered and he both shut and locked the door.

He was trembling all over when he had accomplished this, and groping for a chair he sat down in it, panting. But no sooner had he taken his seat than the dim panes of the window struck his sight, and bounding to his feet he drew down the shade as if he would shut out the whole world from his view, and the burying-yard first of all.

Quite isolated now and in utter darkness, he stood for a few minutes deeply breathing and cursing his own fears and pusillanimity. Then he struck a light, and calmed by the sight of the familiar interior, sat down at his desk and tried to think. But though he was a man of great intellectual powers, he seemed to find it difficult to fix his thoughts or even to remain quiet. Involuntary shudders shook his frame, and from time to time his eye glanced fearfully towards the door as if he dreaded to see it open and admit some ghostly visitor.

Suddenly he leaped to his feet, went to a mirror and surveyed himself. Evidently the result was not encouraging for he uttered an exclamation of dismay and coming back to the desk, took up a book and tried to read. But the attempt was futile. With a low cry he flung the book aside, and rising to his feet began to talk, uttering low and fearful words from which he seemed himself to recoil without possessing the power of stopping them. The name of Ephraim Earle mingled often with these words, and always with that new short laugh of his so horrible to hear. And once he spoke another name, but it was said so softly that only from the tears which gushed impetuously from his eyes, could it be seen that it stirred the deepest chords of his nature.

The clock, which lagged sorely that night, struck eleven at last, and the sound seemed to rouse him, for he glanced toward his bed. But it was only to cry “Impossible!” and to cast a hunted look about the room which seemed like a prison to him.

At length he grasped the green door and began to pull at its hasps and fastenings. Careless of the result of these efforts he shook a small heathen god from its pedestal so that it fell rattling to the floor and lay in minute pieces at his feet. But he did not heed. Recklessly he pulled open the door, recklessly he passed into the space beyond. But once out of the room, once in another atmosphere than that peopled by his imagination, he seemed to grow calmer, and after a short survey of the narrow hall in which he found himself and a glance up the tiny, spiral staircase rising at his right, he stepped back into the office and took up the lamp. Carrying it with him up the narrow staircase he set it down in the hall above, and without looking to right or left, almost without noting the desolation of those midnight halls, he began pacing the floor back and forth with a restless, uneven tread, far removed from his usual slow and dignified gait.

At early morning he was still pacing there.