Further, I could tell that when she reached the hearth she knelt before the empty fireplace, not for warmth, but as if seeking something.

I could hear what seemed a faint irresolute tapping with the knuckles; then just as, once more, the wind fell into a moan without, there came a sudden and fearful noise, which roused us out of our stupor and filled the place with our shrieks.
For a moment we could not say what had happened.

Then I understood that, in the tension of looking for the ghost I could not see, my foot had stretched against the butt of one of the guns and upset a stack of some six of them on to the stone floor, thereby putting an end to all things, the ghost included; for when we recovered from this last fright, and Tim in desperation struck a light, the place was as silent and empty as it was when we entered it.
If it was all an illusion, it was a strange one--strange indeed for a single witness to hear, stranger still for two.

Yet illusion it must have been, begotten of my terrors, and the creak of the stairs, and the sighing of the wind, or the excursions of a vagabond rat.

I do not pretend to explain it.