I was glad enough, however, on reaching the stairs, to find them newly built, and the carpet thick.

Up I went, with a glance at every step for the table which now hid the brute's form from me, and never a creak did I wake out of that staircase till I was almost at the first landing, when my toe caught a loose stair-rod, and rattled it in a way that stopped my heart for a moment, and then set it going in double-quick time.
I stood still with a hand on the rail.

My eyes were now on a level with the floor of the landing, out of which branched two passages--one turning sharply to my right, the other straight in front, so that I was gazing down the length of it.

Almost at the end, a parallelogram of light fell across it from an open door.
A man who has once felt it knows there is only one kind of silence that can fitly be called "dead." This is only to be found in a great house at midnight.

I declare that for a few seconds after I rattled the stair-rod you might have cut the silence with a knife.