Inside the fence, thrusting its branches out between the pickets, ran a head-high hedge of lilac bushes, so that, unless you stood directly in front of the gate, all you saw of the first story were the tops of the front door and the close-shuttered windows.  Between house and hedge there was the remains of a tiny formal garden.  Rows of box, winter-killed in spots, circled and angled about grass-grown spaces which had once been flower-beds.  The dozen feet of path from gate to steps was paved with crumbling red bricks, moss-stained and weed-embroidered.  The front door had side-lights hidden by narrow, green blinds and a fan-light above.  Wade drew forth the key entrusted to him by the agent and tried to fit it to the lock.  But although he struggled with it for several moments it refused stubbornly to have anything to do with the keyhole.

“There’s a side door around there,” advised the boy from the carryall.  “Maybe it’s the key to it.”

“Maybe it is the key to it,” responded Wade, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.  He pushed his way past the drooping branches of an overgrown syringa, tripped over a box-bush, and passed around the left of the house, following the remains of a path which led him to a door in an ell.  Back here there were gnarled apple and pear and cherry trees, a tropical clump of rhubarb, and traces of what had evidently been at one time a kitchen garden.  Old-fashioned perennials blossomed here and there; lupins and Sweet Williams and other sturdy things which had resisted the encroachment of the grass.  The key fitted readily, scraped back, and the narrow door swung inward.

Gloom and mustiness were his first reward, but as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he saw that he was in the kitchen.  There was the sink with a hand-pump on one side and a drain-board on the other.  Here a table, spread with figured yellow oil-cloth; a range, chairs, corner-cupboard, a silent, staring clock.  His steps beat lonesomely on the floor.  A door, reached by a single step, led to the front of the house.  He pushed it open and groped his way up and in, across to the nearest window.  When the blinds were thrust aside he found himself confronted by a long mahogany sideboard whose top still held an array of Sheffield platters, covered dishes, candlesticks.  Save for the dust which lay heavily on every surface and eddied across the sunlight, there was nothing to suggest desertion.  Wade could fancy that the owner had stepped out of doors for the moment or had gone upstairs.  He found himself listening for the sound of footsteps overhead or on the staircase or in the darkened hall.  But the only sounds were faint sighs and crepitations doubtless attributable to the air from the open windows stirring through the long-closed house, but which Wade, letting his fancy stray, chose to believe came from the Ghosts of Things Past.  He pictured them out there in the hall, peering through the crevice of the half-open door at the intruder with little, sad, troubled faces.  He could almost hear them whispering amongst themselves.  He felt a little shiver go over him, and threw back his shoulders and laughed softly at his foolishness.