A rude lantern with a candle burned
down almost to the socket was in an upper chamber, usually illuminated by
acetylene gas, as was all the building. Bayne remembered, according the
circumstance a fresh and added importance, the fleeing apparition in the
vacant hotel that had frightened Lillian, and Mrs. Briscoe's declaration
that a light had flashed the previous night from the interior of the
deserted building. But this intrusion was not necessarily of inimical
significance, he argued. Tramps, perhaps, or some belated hunter stealing
a shelter from the blinding fog, or even petty thieves, finding an
unguarded entrance--it might mean no more. In fact, such intrusion was
the normal incident of any vacant house in remote seclusion, unprotected
by a caretaker. But this reasoning did not convince the servants.
Something had happened, they reiterated; something terrible had happened!
Bayne, flouting fear as a folly, yet himself feeling the cold chill of
dismay, dared not dismiss their anxieties as groundless.
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