“No,” he said; “it would be too cowardly, and I might injure her.”
The next minute he had given a heavy peal on knocker and bell, listened to the hollow echoes raised within the forbidding place, and stood waiting for the opening of the door.
Chapter Ten.
The Bookworm at Home.
As Chester waited for an answer to his summons the thought of the awkwardness of his position struck him, but he was strung up and determined to go on with his quest at all hazards. At the end of a minute there was no reply, and he knocked and rang again, with the hope rising that he was on the right tack at last, for the silence accorded with the mystery of the place he sought.
It was not until he had roused the echoes within the house for the third time that he heard the rattle of a chain being taken down; then the door was opened slowly, and Chester’s heart sank as he found himself face to face with a dim-eyed, sleepy-looking old man, thin, stooping, and untidy of aspect, in his long, dusty dressing-gown and slippers. He was wearing an old-fashioned pair of round glass, silver-rimmed spectacles, whose ends were secured by a piece of black ribbon; and these he pushed up on his forehead as he turned his head side-wise and peered at the visitor.
“I’m afraid you knocked before, sir,” he said in a quiet, dreamy tone.
“Yes—yes. I ought not to have come in this unceremonious way.”