As the match
burned low in my fingers I looked around hastily for a candle,
scanning the dresser, the mantel-shelf, the hugger-mugger of linen,
crockery, wall-ornaments, lying in a trail along the floor. But no
candle could I discover; so I lit a second match from the first and
turned towards the sacred cupboard in the corner.
The cupboard was gone!
I held the match aloft, and stared at the angle of the wall; stared
stupidly, at first unable to believe. Yes, the cupboard was gone!
Nothing remained but the mahogany bracket which had supported it.
I gazed around, the match burning lower and lower in my hand till it
scorched my fingers. The pain of it awakened me, and, dropping the
charred end, I stumbled out into the passage, almost falling on the
way as my feet entangled themselves in Captain Coffin's best
table-cloth.
A moment later I was rapping at Mr. George Goodfellow's door.
I knew that he sometimes sat up late to practice his violin-playing;
and in my confusion of terror I heeded neither that the house was
silent nor that the window over his doorway showed a blank and unlit
face to the night. I knocked and knocked again, pausing to call his
name urgently, at first in hoarse whispers, by-and-by desperately,
lifting my voice as loudly as I dared.
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