He fumbled with the hasp, and, concluding that he did not understand its working, went on into the next room to see if the window there was to be more easily managed.

In this next room he was in almost total darkness.

He had not reached the window before he heard some one moving in an adjoining room.

Turning, he saw a door outlined by cracks of lamplight, and as it was apparent that some one else was in the house, he made at once for this door.

Before he had reached it the cracks of light which guided him were gone; and when he had opened it, the room on whose threshold he stood was dark and silent; yet, whether by some slight sounds, or by some subtler sense for which we have no name, he was convinced that there was some one in it.
Indignant at the extinction of the light and at the silence, he turned energetically again in the direction of the window in order to wrench it open, when, hearing a slight scratching sound, he looked back into the inner room.