He was sitting at the table, his head resting on his hand. His back was to the wide chimney-place, but as he sat his body was half turned towards it. On his right hand was a long, low casement. It was curtainless, but was covered on the outside by a wooden shutter. On his left hand, at the opposite end of the room, was another casement precisely similar except that it was smaller.
All at once, without warning and without any apparent cause, the shutters of the right-hand casement were flung to the ground. Simon Heriot turned his head with a startled cry. His wild eyes stared out into the night. At first, he could see nothing but the cavernous darkness. Yet as he was still gazing, a light was flashed suddenly across the window, and then he saw that a white, ghostly face was pressed against the pane and was looking into the room.
The apparition was so real, so vivid, that Simon Heriot rose half swooning with terror and walked across to the window.
“Who are you?” he gasped.
He had no need to ask. It was the face of the young man, his nephew, whom, as he believed, he had done to death.
“Who are you?” shrieked the wretched man.
He stumbled forward to the window. But when he came there all was dark again. The light was gone, and the face of his nephew had vanished.
Like a lost soul, trembling upon the verge of unreason, he stood at the window gazing far out into the void. But there was only the darkness of the night and the little voice of the summer wind. Yet if he was not in a dream, or if he was not yet bereft of his wits, the shutters were indubitably prone on the ground.
After a moment, the unhappy man turned away from the window, unable longer to endure that cavern of darkness which confronted him. Yet, hardly had he done so, when the shutters which covered the window at the other end of the long room were flung to the ground with a violent crash.
Simon Heriot screamed with terror. There again was the flash of the light. There again was the face of his nephew pressed against the window. Like one possessed, the unhappy man stumbled across the room to this other window. But by the time he had reached it, the light and the face were gone.