It was not many nights before my wife roused me again with the same complaint.
‘Arthur, don’t call me silly, but I am certain I heard something.’
To appease her fears, I shook off my drowsiness, and, with a lighted candle, made a tour of the house; but all was as I had left it.
Once, indeed, I imagined that I heard at my side the sound of a quick breathing; but that I knew must be sheer fancy, since I was alone.
The only circumstance that startled me was finding Dawson, the man servant, who slept on the ground floor, also awake, and listening at his door.
‘What roused you, Dawson?’
‘Well, sir, I can hardly say; but I fancied I heard some one going up the stairs a little while ago.’
‘You heard me coming down, you mean.’
‘No, sir, begging your pardon, it was footsteps going up—lighter than yours, sir. More like those of a woman.’
Yet, though I privately interrogated the female servants on the following day, I could not discover that any of them had been out of their beds; and I forbore to tell my wife what Dawson had said in corroboration of her statement.