“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 the room and saw a shadow pass backward and forward against the little slit of dim light which shone out from under the door. A mad, unreasoning terror rose up in me at the sight, Mr. Holmes. My overstrung nerves failed me suddenly, and I turned and ran - ran as though some dreadful hand were behind me clutching at the skirt of my dress. I rushed down the passage, through the door, and straight into the arms of Mr. Rucastle, who was waiting outside.

“ ‘So,’ said he, smiling, ‘it was you, then. I thought that it must be when I saw the door open.’

“ ‘Oh, I am so frightened!’ I panted.

“ ‘My dear young lady! my dear young lady!’ - you cannot think how caressing and soothing his manner was - ‘and what has frightened you, my dear young lady?’

“But his voice was just a little too coaxing. He overdid it. I was keenly on my guard against him.

“ ‘I was foolish enough to go into the empty wing,’ I answered. ‘But it is so lonely and eerie in this dim light that I was frightened and ran out again. Oh, it is so dreadfully still in there!’

“ ‘Only that?’ said he, looking at me keenly.

“ ‘Why, what did you think?’ I asked.

“ ‘Why do you think that I lock this door?’

“ ‘I am sure that I do not know.’

“ ‘It is to keep people out who have no business there. Do you see?’ He was still smiling in the most amiable manner.

“ ‘I am sure if I had known- -’

“ ‘Well, then, you know now. And if you ever put your foot over that threshold again’ - here in an instant the smile hardened into a grin of rage, and he glared down at me with the face of a demon - ‘I’ll throw you to the mastiff.’