Pluizer gave him a cunning, uncanny look. Doctor Cijfer walked with long strides, looking down at the ground.
The way grew more and more familiar to him—he knew every bush, every stone. Then suddenly he felt a sharp pang, for he stood before his own house.
The chestnut tree in front of it spread out its large, hand-shaped leaves. Up to the very top the glorious white flowers stood out from the full round masses of foliage.
He heard the sound he knew so well of the opening of the door, and he breathed the air of his own home. He recognized the hall, the doors, everything—bit by bit—with a painful feeling of lost familiarity. It was all a part of his life—his lonely, musing child-life.
He had talked with all these things—with them he had lived in his own world of thought that he suffered no one to enter. But now he felt himself cut off from the old house, and dead to it all—its chambers, halls, and doorways. He felt that this separation was past recall, and as if he were visiting a churchyard—it was so sad and melancholy.
If only Presto had sprung to meet him it would have been less dismal—but Presto was certainly away or dead.
Yet where was his father?
He looked back to the open door and the sunny garden outside, and saw the man who had seemed to be following him, now striding up to the house. He came nearer and nearer, and seemed to grow larger as he approached. When he reached the door, a great chill shadow filled the entrance. Then Johannes recognized the man.
It was deathly still in the house, and they went up the stairs without speaking. There was one stair that always creaked when stepped upon—Johannes knew it. And now he heard it creak three times. It sounded like painful groanings, but under the fourth footstep it was like a faint sob.
Upstairs Johannes heard a moaning—low and regular as the ticking of a clock. It was a dismal, torturing sound.