He ran toward the spot, calling as he went.

But when he had vaulted over the low fence, run across the garden and around the end of the arbour, dense with the green leaves and clusters of purple grapes, the space in front of the house was bare.

If more than a trick-phantom of his eye had been there, it had vanished.
He stood gazing blankly at the front door of the house.

Was it fancy that he had heard it shut a second before he came?
that his nerves still responded to the shock of its closing?
He had already imagined so many noises of the kind, so many misty shapes fleeing before him with little soft rustlings, so many whispers at his back and hushed cries behind the closed doors.

Yet this door had seemed to shut more tangibly, with a warmer promise of life.