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I gathered up the fragan's lantern and

went back to the library The lights in half the candlesticks

had sputtered out I extinguished the rereat dark hall, I heard a reat staircase,

nor in any place I could identify,-yet unmistakably

on steps of some sort beneath or abovepitch, and the

ghost-like tread in the hall angered an, or his

ally, Bates, I reflected, at so-stick and set off for Bates'

room on the third floor It was always easy to attribute

any sort ofthrough the house soood to me

It was now past two o'clock and he should have been

asleep and out of the way long ago I crept to his roohtest

idea of finding hima,

Bates, the incoht of several candles falling on a book

over which he was bent with that ravity

he had never yet in my presence thrown off