But the idea was a mistaken one. The Uninhabited
House took its ticket for Brighton by the same express; it got into the
compartment with me; it sat beside me at dinner; it hob-nobbed to me
over my own wine; uninvited it came out to walk with me; and when I
stood still, listening to the band, it stood still too. It went with me
to the pier, and when the wind blew, as the wind did, it said, "We were
quite as well off on the Thames."
When I woke, through the night, it seemed to shout, "Are you any better
off here?" And when I went to church the next day it crept close up to
me in the pew, and said, "Come, now, it is all very well to say you are
a Christian; but if you were really one you would not be afraid of the
place you and I wot of."
Finally, I was so goaded and maddened that I shook my fist at the sea,
and started off by the evening train for the Uninhabited House.
This time I travelled alone. The Uninhabited House preceded me.
There, in its old position, looking gloomy and mysterious in the
shadows of night, I found it on my return to town; and, as if tired of
playing tricks with one who had become indifferent to their vagaries,
all the doors remained precisely as I had left them; and if there were
ghosts in the house that night, they did not interfere with me or the
chamber I occupied.
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