was more a feeling of duty—a feeling that some good might come from my

penetrating to this place. They talk of woman’s instinct; perhaps it was

woman’s instinct which gave me that feeling. At any rate, it was there,

and I was keenly on the lookout for any chance to pass the forbidden door.


“It was only yesterday that the chance came. I may tell you that, besides

Mr. Rucastle, both Toller and his wife find something to do in these deserted

rooms, and I once saw him carrying a large black linen bag with him through the

door. Recently he has been drinking hard, and yesterday evening he was very

drunk; and when I came upstairs there was the key in the door. I have no doubt

at all that he had left it there. Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle were both downstairs,

and the child was with them, so that I had an admirable opportunity. I turned

the key gently in the lock, opened the door, and slipped through.


“There was a little passage in front of me, unpapered and uncarpeted,

which turned at a right angle at the farther end. Round this corner were three

doors in a line, the first and third of which were open. They each led into an

empty room, dusty and cheerless, with two windows in the one and one in the

other, so thick with dirt that the evening light glimmered dimly through them.

The centre door was closed, and across the outside of it had been fastened one

of the broad bars of an iron bed, padlocked at one end to a ring in the wall,

and fastened at the other with stout cord. The door itself was locked as well,

and the key was not there. This barricaded door corresponded clearly with the

shuttered window outside, and yet I could see by the glimmer from beneath it

that the room was not in darkness. Evidently there was a skylight which let in

light from above. As I stood in the passage gazing at the sinister door and

wondering what secret it might veil, I suddenly heard the sound of steps within