By seven I had finished, and just as I got up to light
candles, since it was already dusk, I saw, as I thought, Jack’s figure
emerge from the bushes that bordered the path to the stream, on to the
space in front of the house. Then instantaneously and with a sudden
queer sinking of the heart, quite unaccountable, I saw that it was not
Jack at all, but a stranger. He was only some six yards from the window,
and after pausing there a moment he came close up to the window, so that
his face nearly touched the glass, looking intently at me. In the light
from the freshly-kindled candles I could distinguish his features with
great clearness, but though, as far as I knew, I had never seen him
before, there was something familiar about both his face and figure. He
appeared to smile at me, but the smile was one of inscrutable evil and
malevolence, and immediately he walked on, straight towards the
house-door opposite him, and out of sight of the sitting-room window. Now, little though I liked the look of the man, he was, as I have said,
familiar to my eye, and I went out into the hall, since he was clearly
coming to the front-door, to open it to him and learn his business. So
without waiting for him to ring, I opened it, feeling sure I should find
him on the step. Instead, I looked out into the empty gravel-sweep, the
heavy-falling rain, the thick dusk. And even as I looked, I felt
something that I could not see push by me through the half-opened door
and pass into the house. Then the stairs creaked, and a moment after a
bell rang. Franklyn is the quickest man to answer a bell I have ever seen, and next
instant he passed me going upstairs. He tapped at Jack’s door, entered,
and then came down again. “Mr Jack still out, sir?” he asked. “Yes. His bell ringing again?”

“Yes, sir,” said Franklyn, quite imperturbably. I went back into the sitting-room, and soon Franklyn brought a lamp. He
put it on the table above which hung the careful and curious picture of
the brick-kiln, and then with a sudden horror I saw why the stranger on
the gravel outside had been so familiar to me. In all respects he
resembled the figure that peered into the kiln; it was more than a
resemblance, it was an identity. And what had happened to this man who
had inscrutably and evilly smiled at me? And what had pushed in through
the half-closed door? At that moment I saw the face of Fear; my mouth went dry, and I heard my
heart leaping and cracking in my throat. That face was only turned on me
for a moment, and then away again, but I knew it to be the genuine
thing; not apprehension, not foreboding, not a feeling of being
startled, but Fear, cold Fear. And then though nothing had occurred to
assuage the Fear, it passed, and a certain sort of reason usurped--for
so I must say--its place. I had certainly seen somebody on the gravel
outside the house; I had supposed he was going to the front-door. I had
opened it, and found he had not come to the front-door. Or--and once
again the terror resurged--had the invisible pushing thing been that
which I had seen outside? And if so, what was it? And how came it that
the face and figure of the man I had seen was the same as that which was
so scrupulously painted in the picture of the brick-kiln? I set myself to argue down the Fear for which there was no more
foundation than this, this and the repetition of the ringing bell, and
my belief is that I did so. I told myself, till I believed it, that a
man--a human man--had been walking across the gravel outside, and that
he had not come to the front-door but had gone, as he might easily have
done, up the drive into the high-road. I told myself that it was mere
fancy that was the cause of the belief that Something had pushed in by
me, and as for the ringing of the bell, I said to myself, as was true,
that this had happened before. And I must ask the reader to believe also
that I argued these things away, and looked no longer on the face of
Fear itself. I was not comfortable, but I fell short of being terrified. I sat down again by the window looking on to the gravel in front of the
house, and finding another letter that asked, though it did not demand
an answer, proceeded to occupy myself with it. Straight in front led the
drive through the gap in the pines, and passed through the field where
lay the brick-kiln. In a pause of page-turning I looked up and saw
something unusual about it; at the same moment an unusual smell came to
my nostril. What I saw was smoke coming out of the chimney of the kiln,
what I smelt was the odour of roasting meat. The wind--such as there
was--set from the kiln to the house. But as far as I knew the smell of
roast meat probably came from the kitchen where dinner, so I supposed,
was cooking. I had to tell myself this: I wanted reassurance, lest the
face of Fear should look whitely on me again. Then there came a crisp step on the gravel, a rattle at the front-door,
and Jack came in. “Good sport,” he said, “you gave up too soon.”

And he went straight to the table above which hung the picture of the
man at the brick-kiln, and looked at it. Then there was silence; and
eventually I spoke, for I wanted to know one thing. “Seen anybody?” I asked. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Because I have also; the man in that picture.”

Jack came and sat down near me. “It’s a ghost, you know,” he said. “He came down to the river about dusk
and stood near me for an hour. At first I thought he was--was real, and
I warned him that he had better stand further off if he didn’t want to
be hooked. And then it struck me he wasn’t real, and I cast, well, right
through him, and about seven he walked up towards the house.”

“Were you frightened?”

“No. It was so tremendously interesting. So you saw him here too. Whereabouts?”

“Just outside. I think he is in the house now.”

Jack looked round. “Did you see him come in?” he asked. “No, but I felt him. There’s another queer thing too; the chimney of the
brick-kiln is smoking.”

Jack looked out of the window. It was nearly dark but the wreathing
smoke could just be seen. “So it is,” he said, “fat, greasy smoke. I think I’ll go up and see
what’s on. Come too?”

“I think not,” I said. “Are you frightened? It isn’t worth while. Besides, it is so
tremendously interesting.”

Jack came back from his little expedition still interested. He had found
nothing stirring at the kiln, but though it was then nearly dark the
interior was faintly luminous, and against the black of the sky he could
see a wisp of thick white smoke floating northwards. But for the rest of
the evening we neither heard nor saw anything of abnormal import, and
the next day ran a course of undisturbed hours. Then suddenly a hellish
activity was manifested. That night, while I was undressing for bed, I heard a bell ring
furiously, and I thought I heard a shout also. I guessed where the ring
came from, since Franklyn and his wife had long ago gone to bed, and
went straight to Jack’s room.