The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-05-18


 known another at the very moment when I had expected the fruition of my own joy-ah, that was to open helfs door in my breast, possibility too intolerable to remain unsettled | for an instant.
 Leaving the window, I groped my way along the wall until I reached the rack where the mans coat and hat had hung. Nothing now hung from the rack. The wall was free | from end to end She had taken these articles of male apparel with her; she had not gone forth into the driving snow unprotected, but
 did not know what to think The groping she had done had been in this direction. She was searching for this hat and coat Ca mans hat, a derby, as had been careful to as- sure myself at the first handling), and in them she had gone home as she had probably come, and there was no man in the case, or if there were l The doubt drove me to the staircase. I began my wary ascent. I had not the slightest fear. I was too full of cold rage for that
 l The arrangement of rooms on the second floor was we'll known to me. | understood every nook and corner and could find my way about the whole place without a light. I took | but one precaution, that of slipping off | my shoes at the foot of the stairs. | wished to surprise the intruder. I was willing to resort to any expedient to | accomplish this. The matches I car 1 ried in my pocket would make this | possible if once I heard him breathing held my own breath as stole softly | up and waited for an instant at the | top of the stairs to listen. There was en awesome silence everywhere, and ! was hesitating whether to attack the front rooms first or to follow up | certain narrow hall leading to a rear | staircase when remembered the thin ! line of smoke which, rising from one l of the 'chimneys, had first attracted | my attention to the house. In that was my clew.
 knew that there was but one room on this floor where a fire could be lit It lay few feet beyond me down the
 
 l Why had I trusted everything to my ears when my nose would have been | a better guide? AS took the few steps necessary slight smell of smoke became very perceptible, and, no longer in doubt of my course, pushed boldly on and, entering the half open door, struck a match and peered anxiously about.
 Emptiness here just as everywhere else, few chairs, a dresser-it was ladies' dressing room-some smolder- ing ashes on the hearth, lounge piled up with cushions, but no person. The sound had heard had not issued from this room, yet something withheld me from seeking further. I paused just in- side the door and when the match went out in my hand remained shiver- ing there in the darkness, a prey to sensations more nearly approaching those of fear than any I had ever be fore experienced in my whole life.
 Why I did not know. There seemed to be no reason for this excess of feeling. had no dread of attack. My apprehension was of another sort. Besides, any attack here must come from the rear-from the open door way in which I stood-and my dread lay before me, in the room itself, which, as I have already said, ap- peared to be totally empty. I had for gotten the intruder. The interest which had carried me thus far had become lost in a fresher one of which the be- ginning and ending lay hidden within the four walls I now stared upon, un- seeing. Not to see and yet to feel did that make the horror? If so an- other lighted match must help me out. I struck one while the thought was hot within me and again took a look at the room.
 noted but one thing new, but that made me reel back till I was half. way into the hall. Then a certain dogged persistency possess came to my rescue, and re-entered the room at leap and stood before the lounge and its pile of cushions. They were numerous-all that the room con- tained and more. Chairs had been stripped, window seats denuded and the whole collection disposed here in a set way which struck me as un- natural.
 But at this point my second match went out.
 Thoroughly reused now (you will say by what0. I felt my way out of the room and to the head of the stair case. I remembered the candle and candlestick had heard thrown down on the lower floor by Carmel Cumber- land. l would secure them and come back and settle these uncanny doubts. I had a hunt for the candlestick and a still longer one for the candle, but finally I recovered both and, lighting the latter, felt myself for the first time more or less master of the situa- ton.
 Rapidly regaining the room in which my interest was now centred, I set the candlestick down on the dresser and approached the lounge. Hardly knowing what I feared or what I ex- pected to find, I tore off one of the cushions and flung 1t behind me. More cushions were revealed, but that was not all.
 Escaping from the edge of one of them I saw a shiny tress of woman's hair. I gave a gasp and pulled off more cushions. Then I fell on my knees, struck down by the greatest horror which man can feel. Death