She did not get up to see who it was, but lay perfectly still and heard her heart thump.

When she saw a dim, yellow ray of light under the door which opened into the kitchen, she drew the blanket over her head, and got no comfort whatever from the feel of her six-shooter close against her hand.
The next morning she told herself that she had given in to a fine case of nerves, and that the mysterious footsteps of her story had become mixed up with the midnight wanderings of a pack-rat that had somehow gotten into the house.

Then she remembered the bar of light under the door, and the pack-rat theory was spoiled.
She had taken the board off the doorway into the kitchen, so that she could use the cookstove.

The man could have come in if he had wanted to, and that knowledge she found extremely disquieting.

She went all through the house that morning, looking and wondering.