My entertainer in a few minutes kindled a cheerful fire upon the old-fashioned stone hearth.  Then, after arranging my bed and placing my candle on the mantelpiece, he wished me a respectful goodnight and withdrew.  When he was gone I dragged one of the chairs towards the fireplace, and sat down to enjoy the pleasant flicker of the blaze.  I ruminated upon the occurrences of the day, and the possible history of the old house, whose sole occupant I had thus strangely become.  Now, I am of an inquisitive turn of mind, and perhaps less apt than most men to be troubled with that uncomfortable sensation which those people who are its victims describe as nervousness, and those who are not, as cowardice.  Another in my place might have shrunk from doing what I presently resolved to do, and that was to explore, before going to rest, at least some part of this empty old house.  Accordingly, I took up my candle and walked out into the passage, leaving the door of my room widely open, so that the firelight streamed full into the entrance of the dark gallery, and served to guide me on my way along it.  When I had thus progressed for some twenty yards, I was brought to a standstill by encountering a large red baize door, which evidently shut off the wing in which my room was situated from the rest of the mansion, and completely closed all egress from the corridor where I then stood.  I paused a moment or two in uncertainty, for the door was locked; but presently my glance fell on an old rusty key hanging from a nail, likewise rusty, in a niche of the wall.  I abstracted this key from its resting-place, destroying as I did so the residences of a dozen spiders, which, to judge from appearances, seemed to have thrived excellently in the atmosphere of desolation which surrounded them.  It was some time before I could get the clumsy old lock to act properly, or summon sufficient strength to turn the key; but at length perseverance met with its proverbial reward, and the door moved slowly and noisily on its hinges.  Still bearing my candle, I went on my way into a second corridor, which was literally carpeted with dust, the accumulation probably of the ten years to which my host had referred.

All round was gloomy and silent as a sepulchre, save that every now and then the loosened boards creaked beneath my tread, or some little misanthropical animal, startled from his hermitage by the unwonted sound of my steps, hurried across the passage, making as he went a tiny trail in the thick furry dust.  Several galleries branched off from the mainway like tributary streams, but I preferred to steer my course down the central corridor, which finally conducted me to a large antique-looking apartment with carved wainscot and curious old paintings on the panelled walls.  I put the candle upon a table which stood in the centre of the room, and standing beside it, took a general survey.  There was an old mouldy-looking bookcase in one corner of the