She assented and they walked back until they were out of sight from the door with the dim light burning over it. Then Spencer left her and walked rapidly toward the house. He looked back two or three times. She was standing just where he had left her: close beside a woebegone tree with an iron tree-guard around it. It was a forgotten relic of other days. Her motionless figure could hardly be distinguished from the tree as she leaned against the guard. He opened the outer door of the vestibule. A second dim light was burning here, just enabling him to see the push-button. With a heart palpitating somewhat and with that horrible, gone feeling in the region of his diaphragm, he rang the bell. The outer door closed noiselessly behind him and two electric lights flashed out brilliantly before him. The inner door, which gave entrance to the house, was a massive thing, studded with iron bolts, like the gate of a castle; and at the level of his face was a little grated window or door of solid wood within the larger, iron-studded door. In response to his ring the inner door did not open, but the little grated window did, framing, behind iron bars, the impassive face of a gigantic negro, who scrutinized Spencer with the eye of experience and, having completed his inspection, nodded solemnly. The little grated window closed and the electric lights went out suddenly; and the door opened before him and closed again behind him, leaving everything in readiness for the next comer; and leaving Sally standing alone beside that woebegone tree without. There was nothing unusual about the appearance of the house if we except the iron-studded door and its guardian. The negro, who was very large and very black, had resumed his seat upon a stool by the door. He glanced at Eugene without interest and immediately looked away again and seemed to resume his thoughts about nothing at all. Eugene glanced hastily about. The house might have served as a type of the modest dwellings of the older school. The doors from the lower hall were all shut and the rooms to which they led were empty, so far as he knew, or were used as storerooms, perhaps. Everything was very quiet and he and the gigantic negro might have been the only occupants of the house. Before him was the staircase and he roused himself and mounted to the floor above, walked a few steps along a hall exactly similar to the first, parted the heavy double hangings over a doorway, and entered.