She put down her work, and taking a candle went into the south room.  Placing the light on a chair, she opened the cupboard door and began searching for the thread among a variety of miscellaneous matters.  Some slight noise startled her.  She turned, and saw standing before the fireplace an elderly gentleman, whose face was, as she thought, familiar, though she could not recall at the moment where she had seen it.  It did not occur to her that her companion was not a living man, and she stood for a moment with a look of surprised inquiry, expecting him to speak.  The eyes met hers in a fixed stare, like that of a corpse.  She had not seen the figure move, yet the same instant it was at her side.  It, was too much, even for her.  She turned and sprang through the open door into the passage, but not before it had flashed across her mind that the dead face bore a horrible resemblance to the old doctor.  The Thing did not follow her, and she stood still in the passage, not daring to alarm her more timid sister, and yet dreading inexpressibly to re-enter the haunted room.  Her terror was not merely the oppression, the natural fear of the unknown, the sense of a nature differing from her own, which she had experienced the past night:  it was all this, together with a sense of an evil influence, a feeling of loathing and horror, that made her sick in soul and in body.  However strong her resolution, Miss Sophonisba felt that she could never endure, much less question, this frightful Presence.  The candle was yet burning on the chair where she had left it, and, summoning all her strength, with an inward prayer she recrossed the threshold.  The light still burned brightly, the thread she had come to seek lay on the floor where she had dropped it, but the figure was gone.  She looked about the room:  there was no trace of living presence save her own.  She had even the courage to stoop down and examine the place on the carpet where the Shape had stood, and which covered the burned spot on the floor; but this time the mysterious footsteps had failed to leave their mark.

“Whatever shall I do?” said Miss Sophonisba to herself.  “If Faithful was to see what I have, she’d nigh go crazy; and what excuse can we make for leaving the house?”

If no one but herself had been concerned, I think she would have stood a siege from the hosts of the unknown world rather than confess that she left the house because it was haunted.  She caught herself up as the word was formed in her thoughts.  “Haunted, indeed!” she said.  “I’ll think I’m losing my wits first.  Stuff and nonsense!” But she paused, for through the middle of the room, close by her side, making an angry gesture as it passed, swept the same Shape, visible for one moment, vanishing the next.  She went back into the other room, and giving her sister the thread, sat down so as to hide her face, busying herself with her work until she could in some measure regain her wonted steady composure.