Again he heard the sound of a voice, a man’s voice certainly.  It was raised for the space of a minute in a sort of chant, not loud enough for him to hear any word or to know what language was spoken.

“Hi!” cried Trenholme at the top of his voice.  “Hi, there!  What do you want?”

There was no doubt that a man out there could have heard, yet, whatever the creature was, it took not the slightest notice of the challenge.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light he saw that the figure was moving on the top of the deep snow near the outskirts of the wood—­moving about in an aimless way, stopping occasionally, and starting again, raising the voice sometimes, and again going on in silence.  Trenholme could not descry any track left on the snow; all that he could see was a large figure dressed in garments which, in the starlight, did not seem to differ very much in hue from the snow, and he gained the impression that the head was thrown back and the face uplifted to the stars.

He called again, adjuring the man he saw to come at once and say why he was there and what he wanted.  No attention was paid to him; he might as well have kept silent.

A minute or two more and he went in, shut and bolted his door, even took the trouble to see that the door of the baggage-room was secured.  He took his lamp down from the wall where, by its tin reflector, it hung on a nail, and set it on the table for company.  He opened the damper of the stove again, so that the logs within crackled.  Then he sat down and began to read the Shakespeare he had pushed from him before.  What he had seen and heard seemed to him very curious.  No obligation rested upon him, certainly, to go out and seek this weird-looking creature.  There was probably nothing supernatural, but—­well, while a man is alone it is wisest to shut out all that has even the appearance of the supernatural from his house and from his mind.  So Trenholme argued, choosing the satirical fool of the Forest of Arden to keep him company.

“Now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was at home, I was in a better place:  but travellers must be content.”

Trenholme smiled.  He had actually so controlled his mind as to become lost in his book.

There was a sound as if of movement on the light snow near by and of hard breathing.  Trenholme’s senses were all alert again now as he turned his head to listen.  When the moving figure had seemed so indifferent to his calls, what reason could it have now for seeking his door—­unless, indeed, it were a dead man retracing his steps by some mysterious impulse, such as even the dead might feel?  Trenholme’s heart beat low with the thought as he heard a heavy body bump clumsily against the baggage-room door and a hand fumble at its latch.  There was enough light shining through his window to have shown any natural man that the small door of his room was the right one by which to enter, yet the fumbling at the other door continued.