If listeners seldom hear good of themselves, it is also true that
peepers sometimes see more than they like; and Betty, the cook, as she
reached the landing, glancing askance with ominous curiosity, beheld a
spectacle, the sight of which nearly bereft her of her senses.
Crouching in the deep doorway on the right of the lobby, the cook, I
say, saw something--a figure--or a deep shadow--only a deep shadow--or
maybe a dog. She lifted the candle--she peeped under the candlestick:
'twas no shadow, as I live, 'twas a well-defined figure!
He was draped in black, cowering low, with the face turned up. It was
Charles Nutter's face, fixed and stealthy. It was only while the
fascination lasted--while you might count one, two, three,
deliberately--that the horrid gaze met mutually. But there was no
mistake there. She saw the stern dark picture as plainly as ever she
did. The light glimmered on his white eye-balls.
Starting up, he struck at the candle with his hat. She uttered a loud
scream, and flinging stick and all at the figure, with a great clang
against the door behind, all was swallowed in instantaneous darkness;
she whirled into the opposite bed-room she knew not how, and locked the
door within, and plunged head-foremost under the bed-clothes, half mad
with terror.
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