The long summer afternoon wore away, sunset came, red and angry, a sunset presaging storm. A chill crept into the air with the twilight. When night fell, it was not a night of silver patterns enskied, but a dark and cloudy cloak where a few stars glittered fitfully. Miss Cornelia, at dinner, saw a bat swoop past the window of the dining room in its scurrying flight, and narrowly escaped oversetting her glass of water with a nervous start. The tension of waiting - waiting - for some vague menace which might not materialize after all - had begun to prey on her nerves. She saw Dale off to the country club with relief - the girl looked a little better after her nap but she was still not her normal self. When Dale was gone, she wandered restlessly for some time between living-room and library, now giving an unnecessary dusting to a piece of bric-a-brac with her handkerchief, now taking a book from one of the shelves in the library only to throw it down before she read a page.
This house was queer. She would not have admitted it to Lizzie, for her soul's salvation - but, for the first time in her sensible life, she listened for creakings of woodwork, rustling of leaves, stealthy steps outside, beyond the safe, bright squares of the windows - for anything that was actual, tangible, not merely formless fear.
"There's too much ROOM in the country for things to happen to you!" she confided to herself with a shiver. "Even the night - whenever I look out, it seems to me as if the night were ten times bigger and blacker than it ever is in New York!"
To comfort herself she mentally rehearsed her telephone conversation of the morning, the conversation she had not mentioned to her household. At the time it had seemed to her most reassuring - the plans she had based upon it adequate and sensible in the normal light of day. But now the light of day had been blotted out and with it her security. Her plans seemed weapons of paper against the sinister might of the darkness beyond her windows. A little wind wailed somewhere in that darkness like a beaten child - beyond the hills thunder rumbled, drawing near, and with it lightening and the storm.
She made herself sit down in the chair beside her favorite lamp on the center table and take up her knitting with stiff fingers. Knit two - purl two - Her hands fell into the accustomed rhythm mechanically - a spy, peering in through the French windows, would have deemed her the picture of calm. But she had never felt less calm in all the long years of her life.
She wouldn't ring for Lizzie to come and sit with her, she simply wouldn't. But she was very glad, nevertheless, when Lizzie appeared at the door.
"Miss Neily."
"Yes, Lizzie?" Miss Cornelia's voice was composed but her heart felt a throb of relief."Can I - can I sit in here with you, Miss Neily, just a minute?" Lizzie's voice was plaintive. "I've been sitting out in the kitchen watching that Jap read his funny newspaper the wrong way and listening for ghosts till I'm nearly crazy!"
"Why, certainly, Lizzie," said Miss Cornelia primly. "Though," she added doubtfully, "I really shouldn't pamper your absurd fears, I suppose, but - "
"Oh, please, Miss Neily!"
"Very well," said Miss Cornelia brightly. "You can sit here, Lizzie - and help me work the ouija-board. That will take your mind off listening for things!"
Lizzie groaned. "You know I'd rather be shot than touch that uncanny ouijie!" she said dolefully. "It gives me the creeps every time I put my hands on it!"
"Well, of course, if you'd rather sit in the kitchen, Lizzie - "
"Oh, give me the ouijie!" said Lizzie in tones of heartbreak. "I'd rather be shot and stabbed than stay in the kitchen any more.
"Very well," said Miss Cornelia, "it's your own decision, Lizzie - remember that." Her needles clicked on. "I'll just finish this row before we start," she said. "You might call up the light company in the meantime, Lizzie - there seems to be a storm coming up and I want to find out if they intend to turn out the lights tonight as they did last night. Tell them I find it most inconvenient to be left without light that way.
"It's worse than inconvenient," muttered Lizzie, "it's criminal - that's what it is - turning off all the lights in a haunted house, like this one. As if spooks wasn't bad enough with the lights on - "
"Lizzie!"
"Yes, Miss Neily - I wasn't going to say another word." She went to the telephone. Miss Cornelia knitted on - knit two - purl two - In spite of her experiments with the ouija-board she didn't believe in ghosts - and yet - there were things one couldn't explain by logic. Was there something like that in this house - a shadow walking the corridors - a vague shape of evil, drifting like mist from room to room, till its cold breath whispered on