Still there was no reply, only the clanging of the bell; and then my curiosity overcame my fear, and with a quick movement I threw open the door.
"Are you satisfied now?" I said, angrily. But I addressed an empty vestibule. There was absolutely no one there, and then I sat down on the mat and laughed. I never was so glad to see no one in my life. But my laugh was short-lived.
"What made that bell ring?" I suddenly asked myself, and then the feeling of fear came upon me again. I gathered my somewhat shattered self together, sprang to my feet, slammed the door with such force that the corridors echoed to the sound, slid the bolt once more, turned the key, moved a heavy chair in front of it, and then fled like a frightened hare to the sideboard in my dining-room. There I grasped the decanter holding my whiskey, seized a glass from the shelf, and started to pour out the usual dram, when the glass fell from my hand, and was shivered into a thousand pieces on the hardwood floor; for, as I poured, I glanced through the open door, and there in my sanctum the flicker of a random flame divulged the form of a being, the eyes of whom seemed fixed on mine, piercing me through and through. To say that I was petrified but dimly expresses the situation. I was granitized, and so I remained, until by a more luminous flicker from the burning wood I perceived that the being wore a flaring red necktie.
"He is human," I thought; and with the thought the tension on my nervous system relaxed, and I was able to feel a sufficiently well-developed sense of indignation to demand an explanation. "This is a mighty cool proceeding on your part," I said, leaving the sideboard and walking into the sanctum.
[Illustration]
"Yes," he replied, in a tone that made me jump, it was so extremely sepulchral—a tone that seemed as if it might have been acquired in a damp corner of some cave off the earth. "But it's a cool evening."
"I wonder that a man of your coolness doesn't hire himself out to some refrigerating company," I remarked, with a sneer which would have delighted the soul of Cassius himself.
"I have thought of it," returned the being, calmly. "But never went any further. Summer-hotel proprietors have always outbid the refrigerating people, and they in turn have been laid low by millionaires, who have hired me on occasion to freeze out people they didn't like, but who have persisted in calling. I must confess, though, my dear Hiram, that you are not much warmer yourself—this greeting is hardly what I expected."
"Well, if you want to make me warmer," I retorted, hotly, "just keep on calling me Hiram. How the deuce did you know of that blot on my escutcheon, anyhow?" I added, for Hiram was one of the crimes of my family that I had tried to conceal, my parents having fastened the name of Hiram Spencer Carrington upon me at baptism for no reason other than that my rich bachelor uncle, who subsequently failed and became a charge upon me, was so named.
"I was standing at the door of the church when you were baptized," returned the visitor, "and as you were an interesting baby, I have kept an eye on you ever since. Of course I knew that you discarded Hiram as soon as you got old enough to put away childish things, and since the failure of your uncle I have been aware that you desired to be known as Spencer Carrington, but to me you are, always have been, and always will be, Hiram."