Not to see and yet to feel--did that make the horror?
If so, another lighted match must help me out.

I struck one while the thought was hot within me, and again took a look at the room.
I noted but one thing new, but that made me reel back till I was half way into the hall.

Then a certain dogged persistency I possess came to my rescue, and I re-entered the room at a leap and stood before the lounge and its pile of cushions.

They were numerous,--all that the room contained, and more! Chairs had been stripped, window-seats denuded, and the whole collection disposed here in a set way which struck me as unnatural.

Was this the janitor's idea?
I hardly thought so, and was about to pluck one of these cushions off, when that most unreasonable horror seized me again and I found myself looking back over my shoulder at the fireplace from which rose a fading streak of smoke which some passing gust, perhaps, had blown out into the room.
I felt sick.