"No haunted look there," I thought. "The house is right enough, but some one must have determined to keep it empty." And then I swung myself back into the lane again, and the shadow of the high brick wall projected itself across my mind as it did across my body. "Is this place to let again, do you know?" said a voice in my ear, as I stood looking at the private door which gave a separate entrance to that evil-reputed library. The question was a natural one, and the voice not unpleasant, yet I started, having noticed no one near me. "I beg your pardon," said the owner of the voice. "Nervous, I fear!" "No, not at all, only my thoughts were wandering. I beg your pardon--I do not know whether the place is to let or not." "A good house?" This might have been interrogative, or uttered as an assertion, but I took it as the former, and answered accordingly. "Yes, a good house--a very good house, indeed," I said. "It is often vacant, though," he said, with a light laugh. "Through no fault of the house," I added. "Oh! it is the fault of the tenants, is it?" he remarked, laughing once more. "The owners, I should think, must be rather tired of their property by this time." "I do not know that," I replied. "They live in hope of finding a good and sensible tenant willing to take it." "And equally willing to keep it, eh?" he remarked. "Well, I, perhaps, am not much of a judge in the matter, but I should say they will have to wait a long time first." "You know something about the house?" I said, interrogatively. "Yes," he answered, "most people about here do, I fancy--but least said soonest mended"; and as by this time we had reached the top of the lane, he bade me a civil good-evening, and struck off in a westerly direction. Though the light of the setting sun shone full in my face, and I had to shade my eyes in order to enable me to see at all, moved by some feeling impossible to analyse, I stood watching that retreating figure. Afterwards I could have sworn to the man among ten thousand.