The spiral stair is the safest of all: you cannot tumble far ere brought up by the inclosing cylinder.
Arrived at the bottom, and feeling about, he could not find the door to the outer air which the butler had shown him; it was wall wherever his hands fell.

He could not find again the stair he had left; he could not tell in what direction it lay.
He had got into a long windowless passage connecting two wings of the house, and in this he was feeling his way, fearful of falling down some stair or trap.

He came at last to a door--low-browed like almost all in the house.

Opening it--was it a thinner darkness or the faintest gleam of light he saw?
And was that again the sound he had followed, fainter and farther off than before--a downy wind-wafted plume from the skirt of some stray harmony?
At such a time of the night surely it was strange! It must come from one who could not sleep, and was solacing himself with sweet sounds, breathing a soul into the uncompanionable silence! If so it was, he had no right to search farther! But how was he to return?
He dared hardly move, lest he should be found wandering over the house in the dead of night like a thief, or one searching after its secrets.

He must sit down and wait for the morning: its earliest light would perhaps enable him to find his way to his quarters! Feeling about him a little, his foot struck against the step of a stair.