Read the passage and answer the questions that follow.

My path to the house was by no means an easy one. After confused wanderings through tangled hedges, struggling with obstacles that looked strange to me in the surrounding gloom, I arrived in front of a long, low building. There, to my astonishment, I found doors and windows open to the pervading mist, except for one square window through which a light shone from a row of candles on a long mahogany table.

The quiet and apparent emptiness of this odd and picturesque building made me pause. I am not much affected by the appearance of things, but this silent place, with its sinister atmosphere, made me feel uneasy. I was about to reconsider and go back to the road, when a second look at the comfortable interior I was leaving, convinced me that I was being foolish and sent me straight back to the door which stood open so invitingly.

But half-way up the path, my progress was halted by the sight of a man coming out of the house that I had wrongly assumed to be empty. He seemed to be in a hurry and, at the moment when I first saw him, was busy putting his watch back in his pocket. He did not shut the door behind him, which I thought odd, especially as he had been looking behind him. He seemed to take in all the details of the place he was so hurriedly leaving.

As we met, he raised his hat. This also struck me as unusual, for he displayed more respect than that usually shown to strangers. I was further puzzled that he showed little surprise at bumping into another person in these remote, misty surroundings. Indeed, he was so little impressed by my being there that he nearly passed me without a word or any other hint of greeting, except the raising of his hat. But this did not satisfy me. I was hungry, cold, and eager for creature comforts, and the house before me offered not only warmth, but gave out an inviting smell of food being cooked which was difficult to ignore.