The door clinked behind him. Marden, left in darkness but for the firelight through the chinks in the stove, heard the heavy feet go clumping upstairs. Then there came a stirring about and creaking boards overhead, and growls, and boots dropped heavily, then silence, and at last tremendous snores. Fumbling in the dark, he took the key from behind the spyglass, to hang it by a string about his neck. Then he sat there by the table, and thought, and thought. The creature overhead seemed actually to weigh down upon him and the whole house. But he felt equal to the burden, and even resigned, now that it had so happily come six years too late. He sat thinking and thinking, long after the gleam of the fire had died. At last, from bodily weariness, he fell into a doze and then into a sleep, with his head on his arms.
When he woke the dawn was glimmering in the window beside him. Heavy with sleep, he stared about and thought drunkenly that it must have been a dream; but next instant the loud snoring in the loft set him right.
