Explore "The Veiled Man" by Ambrose Pratt on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Immediately he arrived at Cawthorne Castle the veiled man took possession of the western wing, and there sealed himself up behind bars and bolts, with Simon Vicars for his sole companion and attendant.
Only one apartment, his dining-room, did he place at the disposal of the Castle servants; and even that in a fashion strictly limited. This was situated on the ground floor, and it contained but two doors, one opening on the courtyard, the other upon an interior corridor. During certain hours each day the outer door was left open, to allow the Castle servants to pass in and out with the veiled man's meals. The inner door at such times was stoutly locked, but it was furnished with a fine-meshed grille, through which Mr. Deen might survey the apartment in order to assure himself of a clear coast before he ventured thither when he felt inclined to eat. The room had formerly possessed two windows, but Mr. Deen had obtained the glass of one to be stained and supplemented with impervious steel shutters, and the other to be walled up. The servants thought of him breakfasting in midsummer by candle light and shuddered, beset by unacknowledged superstitious fears. To them he appeared something in the light of an ogre, a shadowy uncanny personality whose directions it were as well to follow implicitly. On that account they entered the privileged rooms in pairs, and their business transacted, they were always glad to fly without attempting to satisfy their curiosity by peeping through the grille. The Earl had, in the first instance, endeavored to explain to them his cousin's peculiar sensitiveness and habits of seclusion, and he believed he had succeeded; but they preferred to listen to the vague and baneful hints of Simon Vicars, and the name which the little valet had dubbed his master--"the veiled man"--spread quickly over the country-side in whispers of evil and mysterious significance. All manner of curious rumors began to arise. Some declared the recluse a leper, or the victim of another equally abominable disease. Others muttered of insanity or crime--crime and the fear of its detection. Others again did not hesitate to dispute the veiled man's sex.