Part 1
THE EMPTY HOUSE
Certain houses, like certain persons, manage somehow to proclaim
at once their character for evil. In the case of the latter, no
particular feature need betray them; they may boast an open
countenance and an ingenuous smile; and yet a little of their
company leaves the unalterable conviction that there is something
radically amiss with their being: that they are evil. Willy nilly,
they seem to communicate an atmosphere of secret and wicked
thoughts which makes those in their immediate neighbourhood shrink
from them as from a thing diseased.
And, perhaps, with houses the same principle is operative, and
it is the aroma of evil deeds committed under a particular roof,
long after the actual doers have passed away, that makes the
gooseflesh come and the hai
