Read the following passage and answer the question given below:
The House in the mist
My path toward this light was by no means an easy one. After confused wanderings through tangled hedges, and a struggle with obstacles of whose nature I received the most curious impression in the surrounding murk. I arrived in front of a long, low building which, to my astonishment. I found standing with doors and windows open to the pervading mist, save for one square casement through which the light shone from a row of candles placed on a long mahogany table.
The quiet and seeming emptiness of this odd and picturesque building made me pause. I am not much affected by visible danger, but this silent room, with its air of sinister expectancy, struck me most unpleasantly, and I was about to reconsider my first impulse and withdraw again to the road, when a second look, thrown back upon the comfortable interior I was leaving, convinced me of my folly and sent me straight toward the door which stood so invitingly open.
But halfway 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.
The Narrator almost made the mistake of -
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → resuming his journey
Struck by the silent room, the narrator was "about to reconsider my first impulse and withdraw again to the road", that is, to go back and continue on his way. A second look at the comfortable interior "convinced me of my folly": he saw that turning back would have been a mistake. To resume is to begin again after a pause.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: entering the house — Incorrect. Contradicted: entering the house is what he finally decided to do; the mistake he nearly made was turning away from it.
Option 3: addressing the man — Incorrect. Not mentioned: the narrator only watches the man; he does not speak to him or think of doing so.
Option 4: being afraid of the uncertainity — Incorrect. Wrong focus: the room "struck me most unpleasantly", but the folly he names is the plan to withdraw to the road, not a feeling of fear.