I obeyed with some little trepidation, for I fully anticipated that I should detect the intruder, of whose presence my own ears had given me, for nearly half an hour, the most unequivocal proofs.  We entered the closet together; it contained but a few chairs and a small spider table.  At the far end of the room there was a sort of grey woollen cloth upon the floor, and a bundle of something underneath it.  I looked jealously at it, and half thought I could trace the outline of a human figure; but, if so, it was perfectly motionless.

“Some of my poor wardrobe,” he muttered, as he pointed his lean finger in the direction.  “It did not sound like a cat, did it—­hey—­did it?” he muttered; and without attending to my answer, he went about the apartment, clapping his hands, and crying, “Hish—­hish—­hish!”

The game, however, whatever it was, did not start.  As I entered I had seen, however, a large crutch reposing against the wall in the corner opposite to the door.  This was the only article in the room, except that I have mentioned, with which I was not familiar.  With the exception of our two selves, there was not a living creature to be seen there; no shadow but ours upon the bare walls; no feet but our own upon the comfortless floor.

I had never before felt so strange and unpleasant a sensation.

“There is nothing unusual in the room but that crutch,” I said.

“What crutch, you dolt?  I see no crutch,” he ejaculated, in a tone of sudden but suppressed fury.

“Why, that crutch,” I answered (for somehow I neither felt nor resented his rudeness), turning and pointing to the spot where I had seen it.  It was gone!—­it was neither there nor anywhere else.  It must have been an illusion—­rather an odd one, to be sure.  And yet I could at this moment, with a safe conscience, swear that I never saw an object more distinctly than I had seen it but a second before.

My companion was muttering fast to himself as we withdrew; his presence rather scared than reassured me; and I felt something almost amounting to horror, as, holding the candle above his cadaverous and sable figure, he stood at his threshold, while I descended the stairs, and said, in a sort of whisper—­

“Why, but that I am, like yourself, a philosopher, I should say that your house is—­is—­a—­ha! ha! ha!—­HAUNTED!”

“You look very pale, my love,” said my wife, as I entered the drawing-room, where she had been long awaiting my return.  “Nothing unpleasant has happened?”

“Nothing, nothing, I assure you.  Pale!—­do I look pale?” I answered.  “We are excellent friends, I assure you.  So far from having had the smallest disagreement, there is every prospect of our agreeing but too well, as you will say; for I find that he holds all my opinions upon speculative subjects.  We have had a great deal of conversation this evening, I assure you; and I never met, I think, so scholarlike and able a man.”