The situation was embarrassing; I rose to
take my leave. At this he seemed to recover himself.
'Please be seated,' he said; 'it is nothing--no
one is there.'
But the tapping was repeated, and with the same
gentle, slow insistence as before.
'Pardon me,' I said, 'it is late. May I call to-
morrow?'
He smiled--a little mechanically, I thought. 'It
is very delicate of you,' said he, 'but quite need-
less. Really, this is the only room in the tower, and
no one is there. At least--' He left the sentence
incomplete, rose, and threw up a window, the only
opening in the wall from which the sound seemed to
come. 'See.'
Not clearly knowing what else to do I followed
him to the window and looked out. A street-lamp
some little distance away gave enough light through
the murk of the rain that was again falling in tor-
rents to make it entirely plain that 'no one was
there.' In truth there was nothing but the sheer
blank wall of the tower.
Dampier closed the window and signing me to
my seat resumed his own.
The incident was not in itself particularly mys-
terious; any one of a dozen explanations was pos-
sible (though none has occurred to me), yet it im-
pressed me strangely, the more, perhaps, from my
friend's effort to reassure me, which seemed to dig-
nify it with a certain significance and importance.
He had proved that no one was there, but in that fact
lay all the interest; and he proffered no explana-
tion.
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