Ronicky looked at them with an unaccountable shudder, as if he read in them the history of the ruin and fall and death of many an old inhabitant of this house.

It seemed to his excited imagination that the man with the sneer had been the cause of all the destruction and would be the cause of more.
He passed back through the basement quickly, eager to be out of the musty odors and his gloomy thoughts.

He found the storerooms, reached the kitchen stairs and ascended at once.

Halfway up the stairs, the door above him suddenly opened and light poured down at him.

He saw the flying figure of a cat, a broom behind it, a woman behind the broom.
"Whisht! Out of here, dirty beast!" The cat thudded against Ronicky's knee, screeched and disappeared below; the woman of the broom shaded her eyes and peered down the steps.