a ghost.  Of course, it was the figure of the walking man that was the cause of all this nervousness; had it not appeared to me I should doubtless have entered the house with the utmost sang-froid, my mind set on nothing but the condition of the walls, drains, etc.  As it was, I held back, and it was only after a severe mental struggle I summoned up the courage to leave the doorway and explore.  Cautiously, very cautiously, with my heart in my mouth, I moved from room to room, halting every now and then in dreadful suspense as the wind, soughing through across the open land behind the house, blew down the chimneys and set the window-frames jarring.  At the commencement of one of the passages I was immeasurably startled to see a dark shape poke forward, and then spring hurriedly back, and was so frightened that I dared not advance to see what it was.  Moment after moment sped by, and I still stood there, the cold sweat oozing out all over me, and my eyes fixed in hideous expectation on the blank wall.  What was it?  What was hiding there?  Would it spring out on me if I went to see?  At last, urged on by a fascination I found impossible to resist, I crept down the passage, my heart throbbing painfully and my whole being overcome with the most sickly anticipations.  As I drew nearer to the spot, it was as much as I could do to breathe, and my respiration came in quick jerks and gasps.  Six, five, four, two feet and I was at the dreaded angle.  Another step—­taken after the most prodigious battle—­and—­NOTHING sprang out on me.  I was confronted only with a large piece of paper that had come loose from the wall, and flapped backwards and forwards each time the breeze from without rustled past it.  The reaction after such an agony of suspense was so great, that I leaned against the wall, and laughed till I cried.  A noise, from somewhere away in the basement, calling me to myself, I went downstairs and investigated.  Again a shock—­this time more sudden, more acute.  Pressed against the window-pane of one of the front reception-rooms was the face of a man—­with corpse-like cheeks and pale, malevolent eyes.  I was petrified—­every drop of my blood was congealed.  My tongue glued to my mouth, my arms hung helpless.  I stood in the doorway and stared at it.  This went on for what seemed to me an eternity.  Then came a revelation.  The face was not that of a ghost but of Mr. Baldwin, who, getting alarmed at my long absence, had come to look for me.

We left the premises together.  All the way back to the town I thought—­should I, or should I not, take the house?  Seen as I had seen it, it was a ghoulish-looking place—­as weird as a Paris catacomb—­but then daylight makes all the difference.  Viewed in the sunshine, it would be just like any other house—­plain bricks and mortar.  I liked the situation; it was just far enough away from a town to enable me to escape all the smoke and traffic, and near enough to make shopping easy.  The only obstacles were the