The stillness had become absolute.

From time to time I could dimly hear the distant cry of an owl, and once far away in the building below a sound as of some one dragging a chain along a floor.

More than once I was certain that I heard the sound of moaning behind the wainscot.

Meantime I realized that the hour must now be drawing close upon the fatal moment of midnight.

My watch I could not see in the darkness, but by reckoning the time that must have elapsed I knew that midnight could not be far away.