aspect was so strange, so terrifying, that, shaken as I was by
fatigue, I recoiled a step.

He was a tall and very thin man, meanly dressed in a short,
scanty jacket and well-darned hose. Unable, for some reason, to
bend his neck, he carried his head with a strange stiffness.

And that head--never did living man show a face so like death.
His forehead was bald and yellow, his cheek-bones stood out under
the strained skin, all the lower part of his face fell in, his
jaws receded, his cheeks were hollow, his lips and chin were thin
and fleshless. He seemed to have only one expression--a fixed
grin.

While I stood looking at this formidable creature, he made a
quick movement to shut the door again, smiling more widely. I
had the presence of mind to thrust in my foot, and, before he
could resent the act, a voice in the background cried,--

'For shame, Clon! Stand back, stand back! do you hear? I am
afraid, Monsieur, that you are hurt.'

Those words were my welcome to that house; and, spoken at an hour
and in circumstances so gloomy, they made a lasting impression.
Round the hall ran a gallery, and this, the height of the
apartment, and the dark panelling seemed to swallow up the light.
I stood within the entrance (as it seemed to me) of a huge cave;
the skull-headed porter had the air of an ogre. Only the voice
which greeted me dispelled the illusion. I turned trembling
towards the quarter whence it came, and, shading my eyes, made