He was certain that the door opened
on a lighted room, yet before he could step in the lights were snapped
out.
He was staring into a deep void of night; and a silence came about him
like a whisper. Out of that silence he thought after a second that he
caught the sound of a hurried breathing, louder and louder, as though
someone were creeping upon him. He glanced over his shoulder in a slight
panic, but down the grey hall on either side there was nothing to be
seen. Once more he looked back into the solemn room, opened his lips to
speak, changed his mind, and closed the door again.
Yet when he looked down again from his own room the lights shone once
more on the shades of his father's windows. Past them brushed the shadow
of the pacing man, up and down, up and down. He turned his eyes away to
the jagged tops of the young trees, to the glimpses of dark fields
beyond them, and inhaled the scent of the wet, green things. It seemed
to Anthony as if it all were hostile--as though the whole outdoors were
besieging this house.
He caught the sway of the pacing figure whose shadow moved in regular
rhythm across the yellow shades.
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