The sound I had heard had not issued from this room, yet something withheld me from seeking further.
Chilled to the bone, with teeth chattering in spite of myself, I paused just inside the door, and when the match went out in my hand remained shivering there in the darkness, a prey to sensations more nearly approaching those of fear than any I had ever before experienced in my whole life.
II IT WAS SHE--SHE INDEED! Look on death itself!--up, up, and see The great doom's visage! _Macbeth_.
Why, I did not know.

There seemed to be no reason for this excess of feeling.

I had no dread of attack; my apprehension was of another sort.
Besides, any attack here must come from the rear--from the open doorway in which I stood--and my dread lay before me, in the room itself, which, as I have already said, appeared to be totally empty.

What could occasion my doubts, and why did I not fly the place?
There were passage-ways yet to search, why linger here like a gaby in the dark when perhaps the man I believed to be in hiding somewhere within these walls, was improving the opportunity to escape?
If I asked myself this question, I did not answer it, but I doubt if I asked it then.

I had forgotten the intruder; the interest which had carried me thus far had become lost in a fresher one of which the beginning and ending lay hidden within the four walls I now stared upon, unseeing.