But as the Guest went along his dim corridor, the Master turned and followed him very softly on tiptoe, watching.
Outside the house, in the darkness, there was a sound of many shuffling feet and whispering voices.
When the Guest came to the side door he tried the latch, to see that it was working freely. He moved the bolt, not forward into its socket, but backward so that it should be no hindrance. In the window beside the doorway he set his candle. So the house was ready for late-comers.
Then the Guest sighed a little. “They are my old friends,” he murmured, “my dear old friends! I could not leave them out in the cold. I am not responsible for what they do. Only I must my old affection prove.” So he sighed again and turned softly to his bed.
But as he turned the Master stood before him and took him by the throat.
“Traitor!” he cried. “You would betray the innocent. Already your soul is stained with my sleeping children's blood.” And with his hands he choked the false Guest to death.
Then he shot the bolt of the side door, and barred the window, and called the servants, and made ready to defend the house.
Great was the fighting that night. In the morning, when the robbers were driven off, the false Guest was buried, outside the garden, in an unmarked grave.
February 2, 1918.