 CHAPTER III. I had a very slightest acquaintance with the basement of the Benton House. I knew it was dry and orderly, and with that my interest in it ceased. It was not cemented, but it was a hard clay floor with almost as solid as macadam. In one end was built a high potato bin. In another corner, two or three old pews from the church evidently long discarded and showing weather stains, as though they had once served as garden benches, were upended against the whitewashed wall. The fruit closet, built in a flumber, occupied one entire end, and was virtually a room with a door and no windows. Maggie had, she said, found it locked and had had a nitinous locksmith, fit a key to it. It's all scrubbed and ready, she said. I've found that preserved melon-ride you had for lunch in a corner. Twin of kept much longer, so I took it up and opened it. Just Bobby got all sorts of stuff spotting in the locked part. Some folks are like that. Most of the shelves were open, but now, holding the lamp high, I saw that a closet with a door occupied one end. The door was padlocked. At the time I was interested, but I was, as I remember, much more occupied with Maggie's sense of mum and tum, which I considered deficient and of a small lecture on other people's melon rinds, which I delivered as she suddenly put away the jelly. But that night, after I had gone to bed, the memory of that padlock became strangely insistent. There was nothing psychic about the feeling I had. It was perfectly obvious and simple. The house held, or had held, a secret. Yet it was, above stairs, as open as the day. There was no corner into which I might not peer, except why was that portion of the food closet locked? At two o'clock, finding myself unable to sleep, I got up and put on my dressing gown and slippers. I refused to repeat the experiment of being locked in. Then, with a candle in the box of matches, I went downstairs. I had as I have said, no longer any terror of the lower floor. The cat lay as usual on the table in the back hall. I saw as I swatching me with their curious and blinking stare, as intelligent as two brass buttons. He rose as my light approached, and I made a bed for him of a cushion from a chair, filling my paisley shawl. It was after that that I had a curious sense of being led. It was as though I knew that something awaited my discovery, and that my sole volition was whether I should make that discovery or not. It was there, waiting. I have no explanation for this, and it is quite possible that I might have had it, to find at the end nothing more significant than root-peer, for instance, all bulbs for the winter garden. And indeed, at first sight, water waded me in the locked closet and mounted to anti-climax. For when I had broken the rusty padlock open with a hatchet, and had opened doors with nervous fingers, nothing more startling appeared than a number of books. The shells were piled high with them, a mildly cruel of all colors, but dark shades for dominating. I went back to bed, sheepishly enough, and wrapped my chilled feet in an extra blanket. Maggie came to the door about the time I was dosing off, and said she had heard hammering downstairs in the cellars some time ago, but she had refused to waken me until the burglars had gone. If it was burglars, she added, you're that up and ready, Miss Agnes, that I knew if I waked you you'd be downstairs after them. What's a bit of silver to a human life? I got her away at last, and she went, muttering something about digging up the cellar floor and finding an uneasy spirit. Then I fell asleep. I had taken colds at night, and the following morning I spent in bed. At noon Maggie came upstairs, holding at arm's length a book. She kept her face averted, and gave me a slanting and outraged glance. This is a nice place we've come to, she said acidly, murder in the telephone, and anti-Christ in the fruit cellar. Why, Maggie, I expotulated. If this book stay, I go, and that's flat, Miss Agnes, was her ipsidixit. She dropped the book on the bed and stalked out, pausing at the door only to throw back. If this is a clergyman's house, I guess I'd better be out of the church. I took up the book. It was well worn and in the front, in a heavy masculine hand, the owner had written his name, written it large, a bit defiantly, perhaps. It had taken both courage and conviction to bring such a book into that devoured household. I'm not quick mentally, especially when it comes to logical thought. I dare say I'm intuitive rather than logical. It was not by any process of reasoning at all, I fancy, that it suddenly seems strange that there should be books locked away in the cellar. Yet it was strange. For that had been a bookish household. Books for its stock and trade, one may say, such as I had borrowed from the library, had been carefully tended, torn leaves were neatly repaired, the reference books were alphabetically arranged, and looking back on my visit to the cellar, I recalled now, as inconsistent, the disorder of those basement shelves. I did not reach the truth until that afternoon. I made a second visit to the cellar. Mrs. Craves had been mistaken. If not all Carly Benton's prescribed books were hidden there, at least a large portion of his library was piled in something like confusion on the shelves. Yet she maintained that he had searched the house, and she herself had been present when the books were packed and taken away to the river. That afternoon I returned Mrs. Craves' visit. She was at home, and in a sort of flurid neatness that convinced me she had seen me from far up the road. That conviction was increased by the amazing propness with which a tea tray followed my entrance. I had given her tea the day she came to see me, and she was not to be outdone. Indeed I somehow gained the impression that tray and teapot and even little cakes had been waiting day by day for my anticipated visit. It was not hard to set her talking of Carly Benton and his wickedness. She rose to the bait like a hungry fish, yet I gathered that beyond these religious views or lack of realism, she knew nothing. But on the matter of the books she was firm. After the box was ready, she said, we went to every room and searched it. Miss Emily was certain clearing out every trace. At the last minute I found one called The Fallacy of Christianity, slipped down behind the dresser in his room, and we put that in. It was The Fallacy of Christianity that Maggie had brought me that morning. It is a most interesting story, I observed. What delicious tea, Mrs. Craves? And then you fastened up the box and saw it thrown into the river. It was quite a ceremony. My dear, Mrs. Craves had solemnly. It was not a ceremony. It was a sight, a significant right. How can I reconcile the thoughts I had that afternoon with my later visit to Miss Emily? The little upper room in the village dominated an almost feel by an old-fashioned bed, and Miss Emily, frail and delicate and beautifully neat, propped with pillows and holding a fine handkerchief, as fresh as the flutings of her small cap in her hand. On a small stand beside the bed were her Bible, her spectacles, and a quaint old-fashioned gold watch. And Miss Emily herself? She was altered, shockingly altered. A certain tenseness had gone, a tenseness that had seemed to uphold her frail body and care her about. Only her eyes seemed greatly alive, and before I left they too had ceased their searching of mine and looked weary and old. And at the end of my short visit I had reluctantly reached this conclusion. Either Miss Emily had done the thing she confessed to doing, incredible as it might appear, or she thought she had done it, and the thing was killing her. She knew I had found the confession. I knew that. It was written much over her. What she had expected me to do, God only knows. To stand up and denounce her? To summon the law? I do not know. She said an extraordinary thing when at last I rose to go. I believe now that it was to give me my chance to speak. Probably she found the suspense intolerable. But I could not do it. I was too surprised, too perplexed, too, well, afraid of hurting her. Had the feeling, I know, that I must protect her, and that feeling never left me until the end. I think you must know, my dear, she said from her pillows, that I have your paisley shawl. I was breathless. I thought that perhaps. I stumbled. It was raining that night, she said in her soft, delicate voice. I've had it dried and pressed. It is not hurt. I thought you would not mind, she concluded. It does not matter at all. Not in the least, I said unhappily. I'm quite sure now that she meant me to speak then. I can recall the way she fixed her eyes on me. Serene and expectant. She was waiting. But to save my life I could not. And she did not. Had she gone as far as she had the strength to go? Or was this again one of those curious packs of hers? If I spoke or was silent, it was to be. I do not know. I do know that we were both silent. In that at last, with a quick breath, she reached out and stomped on the floor with a cane that stood beside the bed until a girl came running up from below stairs. Get the shawl, fanny dear, said Miss Emily, and wrap it up for Miss Blakeston. I wanted desperately, while the girl left the room to obey, to say something helpful, something reassuring. But I could not. My voice failed me. And Miss Emily did not give me another opportunity. She thanked me rather formally for the flowers I had brought from her garden and let me go at last with a parcel under my arm without further reference to it. The situation was incredible. Somehow I had the feeling that Miss Emily would never reopen the subject again. She had given me my chance at who knows what cost, and I had not taken it. There had been something in her goodbye. I cannot find words for it, but it was perhaps a finality, an effect of a closed door that I failed without being able to analyze. I walked back to the house, refusing the offers of Mr. Staley, who met me on the road. I needed to think. But thinking took me nowhere. Only one conclusion stood out as a result of a mile and a half of mental struggle. Something must be done. Miss Emily ought to be helped. She was under a strain that was killing her. But to help I should know the facts. Only were there any facts to know. Suppose, just by way of argument, for I did not believe it, that the confession was true. How could I find out anything about it? Five years was a long time. I could not go to the neighbors. They were none too friendly as it was. Besides, the secret, if there was one, was not mine, but was Miss Emily's. I reached home at last, and smuggled a shawl into the house. I had no intention of explaining its return to Maggie. Yet small as it was in its way, it offered a problem at once. For Maggie has a penetrating eye and an inquiring nature. I finally decided to take the bull by the horns and hang it in its accustomed place in the hall, where Maggie, finding it at nine o'clock that evening, set up such a series of shrieks and exclamations as surpassed even her own record. I knitted that evening. It has been my custom for years to knit bedroom slippers for an old lady's home in which I am interested. Because I can work at them with my eyes shut through long practice, I find the work soothing. So that evening I knitted at Eliza Kleiner-Lingers' fifth annual ride slipper and tried to develop a course of action. I began with a major premise. To regard a confession as a real one, until it was proved otherwise. Granted then, that my little old man's family had killed a woman. First, who was the woman? Second, where is the body? Third, what was the reason for the crime? Question two I had a tentative answer for. However horrible and incredible it seemed. It was at least possible that Miss Emily had substituted the body for the books, and that what Mrs. Graves described as a right had indeed been one. But that brought up a picture I could not face, and yet, I called up the local physician, a doctor lingered that night, and asked him about Miss Emily's condition. He was quite frank with me. It's just a break-in-up, he said. It has come early because she has had a trying life, and more responsibility than she should have had. I've been wondering if a change of scene would not be a good thing, I suggested, but he was almost scornful. Change, he said. I've been after her to get away for years. She won't leave. I don't believe she has been twelve miles away in thirty years. I suppose her brother was a great care, I observed. It seemed to me that the doctor's hurty voice was a trifle less frank when he replied. But when I rang off, I told myself that I, too, was becoming neurasthenic and suspicious. I had, however, learned what I had wanted to know. Miss Emily had had no life outside Bolliver County. To place to look for her story was here, in the immediate vicinity. That night I made a second visit to the basement. It seemed to me with those chaotic shells before me that something of the haste and terror of the night five years before came back to me. A night when, confronted by the necessity for concealing a crime, the box stairs had been hurriedly unpacked, its contents hidden here and locked away, and some other content, inert and heavy, had taken the place of the books. Miss Emily, in her high bed, her viable inspectacles on the stand beside her, her starched pillows, her soft and hybrid voice, or another Miss Emily, panting and terror-stricken, carrying down her armfuls her forbidden books, her slight figure bent under their weight, her ears open for sounds from the silent house. All that third Miss Emily, Martin Spragues, a strange wild creature, neither sane nor insane, building a crime out of the fabric of a nightmare. Which was the real Emily Benton? Or was there another contingency that I had not thought of? Had some secret enemy of Miss Emily's, some hysterical girl from the parish, suffering under a fancied's light, or some dismissed and revengeful servant, taken the strange method of retaliation, done it, and then warned the little old lady that her house contained such a paper? I confess that this last thought took hold on me. It offered a way out that I clutched at. I had an almost frantic feeling by that time, that I must know the truth. Suspense was swaying on me. And Maggie, never slow to voice an unpleasant truth, said that night, as she brought the carafe of ice water to the library. You're going off the last few days, Miss Agnes. And when I made no reply, you're sagging around the chin. There's nothing shows age like the chin. If you'd rub a little lemon juice on at night, you'd tighten up some. I ignored her elaborately, but I knew she was right. Heat and sleepless nights, and those early days of fear had told on me. And although I usually disregard Maggie's cosmetic suggestions, called from the beauty columns of the evening paper, a look in the mirror decided me. I went downstairs for the lemon. At least I thought it was for the lemon. I am not sure. I have come to be uncertain of my motives. It is distinctly possible that subconsciously I was making for the cellar all the time. I only know that I landed there with a lemon in my hand at something after eleven o'clock. The books were piled in disorder on the shelves. Their five years of burial had not hurt them beyond a slight dampness of the leaves. No hand, I believe, had touched them, since they were taken from the box where Mrs. Graves had helped to pack them. Then if I were shrewd, I should perhaps gather something from their very disorder. But as a matter of fact, I did not. I would quite certainly have gone away as I came, clueless. Had I not attempted to straighten a pile of books, dangerously sagging, like my chin, and threatening a fall, my effort was rewarded by a veritable Niagara of books. They poured over the edge a few first, then more, and the lies stood, it seemed, knee-deep in a raging sea of atheism. Somewhat grimly I set to work to repair the damage, and one by one I picked them up and restored them. I put them in methodically this time, glancing at each title to make the volume upright. Suddenly, out of the darkness of unbelief, a title caught my eye and held it. The handwriting of God. I knew the book. It had fallen into bad company, but its theology was unimpeachable. It did not belong. It... I opened it. The reverence sampled the days, had written his own name in it, in the cramped hand I had grown to know. Evidently its presence there was accidental. I turned it over in my hands, and saw that it was closed down on something, on several things indeed. They proved to be a small black notebook, a pair of spectacles, a woman's handkerchief. I stood there looking at them. They might mean nothing but the accidental closing of a book, which was mistakenly placed in bad company, perhaps by Mrs. Graves. I was inclined to doubt her knowledge of religious literature, or they might mean something more, something I had feared to find. Arm is a volume and a lemon forgotten, where the cook found it the next day and made much of the mystery. I went upstairs again. Viewed in a strong light, the three articles took on real significance. The spectacles I fancied were Miss Emily's. They were to all appearances, the duplicates of those on a tidy bedside stand. But the handkerchief was not hers. Even without the sand, which had left it, but clung obstinately to the pages of the book, I knew it was not hers. It was floored, embroidered, and cheap. And held close to the light. I made out a laundry mark and ink on the border. The name was either right or night. The notebook was an old one, and covered a period of almost twenty years. It contained dates and cash entries. The entries were nearly all in Reverend Sammel's days' hand. But after the date of his death, they had continued in Miss Emily's writing. They very little say that the amounts gradually increased over the end, and the dates were further apart. Thus in 1898 there were six entries, aggregating five hundred dollars. In 1902 to 1903 there were no entries at all. But in 1904 there was a single memorandum of a thousand dollars. The entire amount must have closed to twenty-five thousand dollars. There was nothing to show whether it was money saved or money spent, money paid out, or come in. But across the years 1902 and 1903 the reverence of days had written diagonally the word Australia. There was a certain amount of enlightenment there. Carla Benton had been in Australia during those years. In his fifty years in Bolivar County the father had rather naively quoted a letter from Carla Benton in Melbourne, a record then in all probability of sums paid by this harassed old man to a worthless son. Only the handkerchief refused to be accounted for. I did not sleep that night. More and more as I lay wide-eyed through the night it seemed to me that Miss Emily must be helped, that she was drifting miserably out of life for need of a helping hand. One stored mourning I dosed off to waken in a state of terror that I recognized as a return of the old fear. But it left me soon although I lay awake until mourning. That day I made two resolves to send for Willie and to make a determined effort to see the night telephone operator. My letter to Willie off I tried to fill the day until the hour when the night telephone operator was up and about, late in the afternoon. The delay was simplified by the arrival of Mrs. Graves in white silk gloves and a black cotton umbrella as a sun shade. She had lost her air of being afraid I might patronize her and explain pantingly that she had come in an errand not to call. I am at my Christmas present now, she said, and I have fixed on the bedroom set for Miss Emily. I suppose you won't care if I go right up and measure the dresser top, will you? I took her up in her sharp eyes broved over the stairs and the upper hall. That's where Carla died, she said. It's never been you since unless you, she had passed, staring into Miss Emily's deserted bedroom. It's a good thing I came, she said. The eyes no use to trust to, especially for bureaus. She looked around the room, there was at that moment something tender about her. She even lowered her voice and softened it. It took on almost comically the refinements of Miss Emily's own speech. Whose photograph is that? She asked suddenly, I don't know that I ever saw it before, but it looks familiar too. She reflected before it. It was clear that she felt a sort of resentment at not recognizing the young and smiling woman in the old walnut frame. But a moment later she was measuring the dresser top, her mindset on Christmas benevolence. However, before she went out, she passed you the photograph. It's clear, she said, I've been in this room about a thousand times, and I've never noticed it before. I suppose you can get so accustomed to a thing that you don't notice it. She went out, she turned to me, and I gathered that not only the measurement for a gift had brought her that afternoon. About those books, she said, I run on a lot when I get to talking. I suppose I shouldn't have mentioned them, but I'm sure you'll keep the story to yourself. I've never even told Mr. Graves. Of course I shall, I assured her. But didn't the Hackman see you packing the books? No indeed, we packed them the afternoon after the funeral, and it was the next day that Staley took him off. He thought it was old bedding and so on, and he hinted to have it given to him. So Miss Emily and I went along to see it was done right. So I discovered that the box had set overnight in the Benton House. There remained, if I was to help Miss Emily, to discover what had occurred in those dark hours when the books were taken out and something else substituted. The total result of my conversation that afternoon on the front porch of the small frame house on the side street with the night telephone operator was additional mystery. I was not prepared for it. I had anticipated resentment and possibly insolence, but I had not expected to find fright. Yet the girl was undeniably frightened. I had hardly told her the object of my visit before I realized that she was in a state of almost panic. You can understand how I feel, I said. I have no desire to report a matter of course, but someone has been calling the house repeatedly at night, listening until I reply, and then hanging up the receiver. It is not accidental. It has happened too often. I'm not supposed to give out information about calls. But just think a moment, I went on. Suppose someone is planning to rob the house, and using this method of finding out if we are there or not. I don't remember anything about the calls you're talking about. She carried without looking at me, as busy as I am. Nonsense, I put in. You know perfectly well what I'm talking about. How do I know what that is the intention of someone to lure me downstairs to the telephone and then murder me? I'm sure it is not that, she said, for almost the first time she looked directly at me, and I caught a flash of something, not defiance. It was indeed rather like reassurance. You see, you know it's not that. I felt all at once that she did not know who was calling me at night and why, and moreover that she would not tell. If, as I suspected, it was Miss Emily, this girl must be to some extent in her confidence. But suppose for a moment that I think I know who is calling me. I hesitated. She was a pretty girl with an amiable face and more than a suggestion of good-breeding and intelligence about her. I made a quick resolve to appeal to her. My dear child, I said, I want so very much, if I can, to help someone who is in trouble. But before I can help, I must know that I can help, and I must be sure it is necessary. I wonder if you know what I'm talking about. Why don't you go back to the city? She said suddenly, go away and forget all about us here. That would help more than anything. But would it? I asked gently, would my going away help her? To my absolute amazement she began to cry. We had been sitting on a cheap porch seat side by side and she turned her back to me and put her head against the arm of the bench. She's going to die! She said shakily. She's wicker every day. She's slipping away and no one does anything. But I got nothing more from her. She had understood me. It was clear. And when at last she stopped crying. She knew well enough that she had betrayed her understanding. But she would not talk. I felt that she was not unfriendly, but that she was rather than stubborn. In the end I got up little better off than when I came. I'll give you time to think it over. I said. Not so much about the telephone calls because she really answers that. But about me, Samly. She needs help. And I want to help her. But you tie my hands. She had a sort of gift for silence. As I grew later on to know Anne Bollard better I realized that even more. So now she said silent and let me talk. What I want I said is to have Miss Emily know that I am friendly. That I am willing to do anything to to show my friendliness anything. You see she said with a kind of dogged patient it isn't really up to you or to me either. It's something else. She hesitated. She's very obstinate, she added. When I went away I was aware that her eyes followed me anxious and thoughtful eyes with something of Miss Emily's own wide-eyed gaze. Willie came late the next evening. I had indeed gone upstairs to retire when I heard his car in the drive. When I admitted him he drew me into the library as I thought he said nerves gone, looks gone I told you Maggie would put a curse on you. What is it? So I told him a telephone he already knew about the confession he read over twice and then observed characteristically that he would be eternally I think the word is horn swoggled. When I brought out the handwriting of God in Mrs. Grave's story of the books he looked thoughtful and indeed by the end of the recital he was very grave. Sprague is so lunatic he said with conviction there was a body and it went into the river in the packing case it is distinctly possible that this night or right woman who owned a handkerchief was the victim however that's for later on the plain truth is that there was a murder and that Miss Emily is shielding someone else and after all that was the only immediate result of Willis visit a new theory so that now it stood there was a crime there was no crime Miss Emily had committed it Miss Emily had not committed it Miss Emily had confessed it but someone else had committed it for a few hours however our attention was distracted for Miss Emily and her concerns by the attempted robbery of the house that night I knew nothing of it until I heard Willis shouting downstairs I was deeply asleep relaxed no doubt by the consciousness that at last there was a man in the house and indeed Maggie slept for the same reasons of the entire occurrence stop or I'll fire Willis repeated as I set up in bed I knew quite well that he had no weapon there was not one in the house but the next moment there was a loud report either a door slamming or a pistol shot and I ran to the head of the stairs there was no light below but the current of cool night air came up the staircase and suddenly I realized I was in the house Willi I cried out in an agony of fright but he did not reply and then suddenly the telephone rang I did not answer it I know now why it rang that there was a real anxiety behind its summons but I hardly heard it then was convinced that Willi had been shot I must have gone noiselessly down the stairs and at the foot I ran directly into Willi he was standing there only a deeper shadow in the blackness and I had placed my hand over his as it lay on the noble post before he knew I was on the staircase he wheeled sharply and I felt to my surprise that he held a revolver in his hand Willi what is it I said in a low tone shhh he whispered don't move or speak we'll listen standing together there were undoubtedly sounds outside someone moving about a hand on the window catch and finally not particularly cautious steps on the front door it swung open I could hear it creak as it moved slowly on its hinges I put a handout to steady myself by the comfort of Willi's presence before me between me and that softly opening door but Willi was moving forward crouched down I fancied and the memory of that revolver terrified me don't shoot him Willi I almost shrieked shoot whom said Willi's cool voice just inside the door I knew then and I went sick all over some were in the hall between us crouched the man I had taken for Willi crouched with a revolver in his right hand the door was still open I knew and I could hear Willi fumbling on the hall stand for matches I called out something incoherent but not striking a light but Willi whistling softly to show how cool he was struck a match it was followed instantly by a report and I closed my eyes when I opened them Willi was standing unhurt staring over the burning match at the door which was closed and I knew that the report had been but the bang of the heavy door what in places slammed that door he said the burglar or whatever he is I said my voice trembling in spite of me he was here in front of me I laid my hand on his he had a revolver in it when you opened the door he slipped out past you Willi muttered something and went towards the door a moment later I was alone again and the telephone was ringing I felt my way back along the hall I touched the cat which had been sleeping on the telephone stand he merely turned over I have tried in living that night over again to record things as they impressed me for after all this is a narrative of motive rather than of incidents of emotions as against deeds but at the time the brief conversation over the telephone seemed to me both horrible and unnatural from a great distance a woman's voice said he said anything wrong there that was the first question and I felt quite sure that it was the burglar girl's voice that is looking back on the safety of the next day I so decided at the time I had no thought whatever there is nothing wrong I replied I do not know why I said it surely there was enough wrong with Willi chasing an arm intruder through the garden I thought the connection had been cut for there was a buzzing on the wire but a second or so later there came an entirely different voice one I had never heard before a plenty voice full I thought of tears oh please said this voice go out and look in your garden on the road please quickly you will have to explain I said impatiently of course we will go and look but who is it and why I was cut off there definitely and I could not get Central's attention again Willi's voice from the veranda boomed through the lower floor this is I he called no boiling water please went through the library and lighted a lamp he was smiling when he entered a reassuring smile but rather a shipish one too the cheapest kind of a trick he had slammed the door before to make me think he had gone out and all the time he was inside and you why didn't you scream I thought it was you I told him the library was in chaos letters were lying about books the drawer of a large desk table in the center of the room had been drawn out and searched the history of Bolivar County for instance was lying on the floor face down in a most ignitable position in one place books had been taken from a recess by the fireplace revealing a small wall covered behind I had never known of the hiding place but a glance into it revealed only a bottle of red ink and a strip of a sermon on missions standing under this order of the room I told Willy about the telephone message he listened attentively and at first skeptically probably a ruse to get his son out of the house but coming a trifle later be useful was his comment but I had read this in the second voice and said so at last he went to the telephone I'll verify it he explained someone is really anxious I'll get the car and take a scout around but received no satisfaction from the bullied girl who he reported listened stoically and then said she was sorry but she did not remember who had called auntie is reminding her that she must have a record she countered with a flat statement that there had been no calls for us that night Willy looked thoughtful when he returned to the library a weird story back of all this he said I think I'll get the car and scout around he is armed Willy I protested he doesn't want to shoot me or he could have done it I'll just take a look around and come back to report it was half past three by the time he was ready to go he was as he observed rather sketchily clad but the night was warm behind him then I went into the library to wait and put things to write so I waited the dawn is early in August and although it was not more than half past four when Willy came back it was about daylight by that time I went to the door and watched him bring the car to a standstill he shook his head when he saw me absolutely nothing he said it was a ruse to get me out of the house of course I've run the whole way between here and town twice but that could not have taken an hour I protested no he said I'm at the doctor what's his name the local MD anyhow footing it out of the village to a case and I took him to his destination he has a card seems but it's out of order interesting old chap he added as I led the way into the house didn't know me from Adam but open up when he found out who I was I had prepared the coffee machine and carried the tray to the library while I lighted the lamp he stood whistling softly and thoughtfully at last he said look here Aunt Agnes I think I'm a good bit of a fool but sometime this morning I wish I would call up Thomas Jenkins on the Elmberg Road and find out if anyone is sick there but when I stared at him he only laughed sheepishly you can see how your suspicious disposition is undermined and ruined my one's trusting nature he scoffed he took his coffee and then stripping off his ulster departed for bed I stopped to put away the coffee machine and with Maggie in mind to hang up his motorcoat it was then that the flashlight fell out I picked it up it was shaped like a revolver I stopped in Willy's room on my way to my own and held it out to him where did you get that I asked good heavens he said, raising himself on his elbow it belongs to the doctor he gave it to me to examine the fan belt I must have dropped it into my pocket and still I was nowhere suppose I had touched this flashlight at the foot of the stairs and mistaken it for a revolver suppose that the doctor making his way toward the village and finding himself pursued had faced about and pretended to be leaving it Grant, in a word the doctor lingered himself had been our night visitor what then? why had he done it? what of the telephone call urging me to search the road did someone realize what was happening and take this method of warning us and sending us after the fugitive I knew the Thomas Jenkins farm on the Elmburg Road I had indeed brought vegetables and eggs for Mr. Jenkins himself that morning, as early as I dared I called the Jenkins farm Mr. Jenkins himself would bring me three dozen eggs that day they were a little torn up out there as Mrs. Jenkins had born a small daughter at 7 a.m. when I told Willie he was evidently relieved I'm glad of it he said hurtily the doctor is a far and old chap and I'd hate to think he was mixed up in any shady business he was insistent that day that I give up the house he said it was not safe and I was inclined to agree with him but although I did not tell him of it I had even more strongly than ever the impression that something must be done to help Miss Emily and that I was the one who must do it yet in the broad light of day with the sunshine pouring into the rooms I was compelled to confess that Willie's theory was more than upheld by the facts first of all was the character of Miss Emily as I read it sternly consensuous proud and yet gentle second there was the connection of the bullard girl with the case and third there was the invader of the night before an unknown quantity where so much seemed known where a situation involving Miss Emily alone seemed to call for no one else Willie put a matter flatly to me as he stood in the hall drawing on his driving gloves do you want to follow it up he asked isn't it better to let it go after all you have only rented the house you haven't taken over its history or any responsibility but the rent I think Miss Emily needs to be helped I said rather feebly but her friends help her she has plenty of them besides isn't it rather a clear way to help her to try to fasten a murder on her I could not explain what I felt so strongly that Miss Emily could only be helped by being hurt that whatever she was concealing the long concealment was killing her that I felt in her it is always difficult to put what I felt about Miss Emily into words that she both hoped for and dreaded desperately the light of the truth but if I was hardly practical when it came to Miss Emily I was rational enough in other things it is with no small pride but without exultation for in the end it cost too much that I point to the solution of one issue as my own with Willie gone Maggie and I settled down to the quiet tenure of our days she informed me on the morning after that eventful night that she had not closed an eye after one o'clock she came into the library and asked me if I could order her some sleeping powders Phil sticks I said sharply you slept all night I was up and around the house and you never knew it honest to heaven Miss Agnes I never slept at all I had a horse kelpin like it was running off and it wake me for good and after a time I felt that however mistaken Maggie had been she was possibly correct about the horse he started to run about this table somewhere she said you can smile if you want that's the heavens truth and he came down the drive on the jump and out onto the road we can go and look for hoof marks I said and rose but Maggie only shook her head it was no real horse Miss Agnes she said you'll find nothing anyhow I've been and looked there's not a mark but Maggie was wrong I found hoof prints in plenty in the turf beside the drive and a track of them through the lettuce bed in the garden more than that beyond this table I found where a horse had been tied and had broken away a piece of worn strap still hung there it was sufficiently clear then that whoever had broken into the house had come on horseback and left a foot but many people in the neighborhood used horses the clue if clue it can be called got me nowhere End of chapter 3 Chapter 4 for several days things remained in status quo our lives went on evenly the telephone was at our service without any of its past vagaries Maggie's eyes seized to look as if they were being pushed out from behind and eyes seized to awaken at night and listened for untoward signs woolly telephone daily it was frankly uneasy about my remaining there you know something that somebody resent your knowing he said a day or two after the night visitor it may become very uncomfortable for you and after a day or two I began to feel that it was being made uncomfortable for me I am a social being I like people in the city my neighborly instincts have died of a sort of brick wall apathy but in the country it comes to life again the instinct of gregariousness is as old as the first hamlets I dare say when prehistoric man ceased to live in trees and banded together for protection from the wild beast that walked the earth the village became unfriendly it was almost a matter of a night one day the postmistress leaned on the shelf at her window and chatted with me she passed out my letters with hardly a glance Mrs. Craves did not see me at early communion on Sunday morning the hackman was busy when I called him it was intangible a matter of omission not commission the doctor's wife who had asked me to tea called up and regretted that she must go to the city that day I sat down then and took stock of things did the village believe that Miss Emily must be safe from me did the village know the story I was trying to learn and was it determined I should never find out the truth and if this were so was the village right or was I they would save Miss Emily by concealment while I felt that concealment had failed and that only the truth would do did the village know or only suspect or was it not the village at all but one or two people who were determined to drive me away my theories were rudely disturbed shortly after that by a visit from Martin Sprague I fancied that it really had sent him but he evaded my question I'd like another look at that slip of paper he said where do you keep it by the way in a safe place and he left the truth was that I had taken out the removable inner soul of a slipper and had placed it underneath an excellent hiding place but one I did not care to confide to him one had brought it downstairs he read it over again carefully and then sat back with it in his hand now tell me everything he said I did while he listened attentively afterward he walked back to the barn and I showed him the piece of broken halter still tied there he surveyed it without comment but on the way back to the house he said if the village is lined up as you say it is I suppose it is useless to interview the harness-maker he has probably repaired that strap or sold a new one to whoever it would be a nice clue to follow up I am not doing detective work I said shortly I am trying to help someone who is dying of anxiety and terror he nodded I get you he said but his tone was not flippant the fact is of course that the early theory won't hold there has been a crime and the little old lady did not commit it but suppose you find out who did it how is that going to help her I don't know Martin I said in a sort of desperation but I have the most curious feeling that she is depending on me the way she spoke the day I saw her and her eyes and everything I know you think it nonsense I finished lamely I think it better give up the place and go back to town he said but I saw that he watched me carefully and when at last he got up to go he put a hand on my shoulder I think you are right after all he said there are good many things that can't be reasoned out with any logic we have but that are true nevertheless we call it intuition but it's really subconscious intelligence stay by all means if you feel you should in the doorway he said remember this Miss Agnes both a crime of violence and a confession like the one in your hand are the products of impulse they are not either of them premeditated they are not the work then of a calculating or cautious nature look for a big emotional type it was a day or two after that that I made a visit to Miss Emily I had stopped once before to be told with an error of finality that the invalid was asleep on this occasion I took with me a basket of fruit I had half expected a refusal but I was admitted the bullet girl was with Miss Emily she had I think me kneeling beside the bed and her eyes were red and swollen but Miss Emily herself was as cool as Taney and starched and fragile as ever more so I thought she was thinner and although it was a warm August day a white silk shawl was wrapped around her shoulders fastened with an amethyst brooch in my class her thin hand felt hot and dry I have been waiting for you she said simply she looked at Anne Bullard and the message in her eyes was plain enough but the girl ignored it she stood across the bed from me and eyed me steadily my dear said Miss Emily in her high-bred voice if you have anything to do Miss Blakeiston will sit with me for a little while I have nothing to do said the girl doggedly perhaps this is not the word she had more the look of endurance and supreme patience there was no sharpness about her although there was vigilance Miss Emily sighed and I saw her eyes seek the Bible beside her but she only said gently then sit down dear you can work at my knitting if you like my hands get very tired she asked me questions about the house and the garden the raspberries were usually quite good and she was rather celebrated for her lettuces if I had more than I needed would I mind if Mr. Staley took a few in to the doctor who was fond of them the mention of Dr. Lingard after the night of the burglary I wondered if to tell Miss Emily would unduly agitate her I think I would not have told her but I caught the girl's eye across the bed raised from her knitting and fixed on me with a peculiar intensity suddenly it seemed to me that Miss Emily was surrounded by a conspiracy of silence and it groused my antagonism there are plenty of lettuces I said although a few were trembled by a runaway horror the other night it is rather a curious story so I told her of our night visitor I told it humorously lightly touching on my own horror at finding I had been standing with my hand on the burglar's shoulder but I was sorry for my impulse immediately for I saw Miss Emily's body grow rigid and her eyes twist together she did not look at me she stared fixedly at the girl her eyes met it was as if Miss Emily asked a question which the girl refused to answer it was as certain as though it had been a matter of words instead of glances it was over in a moment Miss Bullard went back to her knitting but Miss Emily lay still I think I should not have told you I apologized I thought it might interest you of course nothing whatever was taken had no damage done accepted the lettuces Anne said Miss Emily will you bring me some fresh water the girl rose reluctantly but she did not go farther than the top of the staircase just beyond the door we heard her calling to someone below in her clear young voice to bring the water at that moment she was back in the room but Miss Emily had had the opportunity for one sentence I know now she said quietly that you have found it Anne Bullard was watching me from the doorway and it seemed to me having got so far I could not retreat I must go on Miss Bullard I said I would like to have just a short conversation with Miss Emily it is about a private matter I am sure you will not mind if I ask you I shall not go out Anne said Miss Emily sharply the girl was dogged enough by that time both dogged and frightened I felt but she stood her ground she is not to be worried about anything she insisted and she is not supposed to have visitors that's the doctor's orders I felt outraged and indignant but against the stone wall of the girl's presence and her distrust I was helpless I got up with as much dignity as I could muster I should have been told that downstairs the woman's a fool said Anne Bullard with a sort of suppressed fierceness she stood aside as having said goodbye to Miss Emily I went out and I felt that she hardly breathed until I had got safely to the street looking back I feel that Emily Benton died at the hands of her friends for she died indeed died in the act of trying to tell me what they had determined she should never tell died of kindness and misunderstanding died repressed and she had lived repressed yet I think I had made no further attempt to see her and Maggie and I had taken up again the quiet course of our lives the telephone did not ring of night the cat came and went spending aside learned its days with Miss Emily and its nights with us I've wondered since how many nights Miss Emily had spent in the low chair in the back hall where the confession lay hidden I could feel it could sleep nowhere else the days went by warm days and cooler ones but rarely rainy ones the dust from the road settled thick over flowers and shrubbery the lattices wilted and those that stood up in the sun were strong and bitter by the end of August we were gasping in hot dryness that cracked the skin and made any but cold food impossible Miss Emily lay through it all in her hot upper room in the village in my attempt her doctor lingered to coax her back to the house by offering to leave it brought only a negative it will be better for her you understand the doctor said over the telephone but she is very determined and she insists on remaining where she is and I believe this was the truth they would surely have been glad to have heard of me these friends of Miss Emily's I've wondered since what they thought of me and Bouldard and the doctor they have feared me as they did I look in the mirror and I see a middle-aged woman with a determined nose slightly inquisitive and what I trust is a humorous mouth for it has no other virtues but they feared me perhaps long looking for a danger affects the mental vision anyhow but the doctor's order I was not allowed to call and see Miss Emily again then one night the heat suddenly lifted one moment I was sitting on the veranda lifeless and inert and the next a cool wind with a hint of rain had set the shutters to banging and the curtains to flowing like flags of truce from the windows the air was life energy I felt revivified and something of the same sort must have happened to Miss Emily she must have set up among her pillows her face fanned with the electric breeze and made her determination to see me and Bouldard was at work and she was free from observation it must have been nine o'clock when she left the house a shaken little figure in black not as neat as usual but hooked and buttoned for all that with no one will ever know what agony of old hands she was two hours and a half getting to the house and the rain came at ten o'clock by half after eleven when the doorbell rang she was a sudden mess of wet garments and her teeth were chattering when I led her into the library she could not talk everything she had come to say was totally beyond her I put her to bed in her own room and two days later she died I'd made no protest when Anne Bouldard presented herself at the door the morning after Miss Emily arrived and walking into the house took sleepless charge of the sick room and I made no reference save once to the reason for the tragedy that was the night Miss Emily died Anne Bouldard had called to me that she feared there was a change and I went into the sick room there was a change and I could only shake my head she burst out at me then if only you had never taken this house she said you people with money you think there is nothing you cannot have you came and now look Anne I said with a bitterness I could not conceal Miss Emily is not young and I think she is ready to go but she has been killed by her friends I wanted to help but they would not allow me to toward morning there was nothing more to be done and we sat together listening to this torturous breathing from the bed Maggie you had been up all night had given me notice at three in the morning and was upstairs packing her trunk I went into my room and brought back Miss Emily's confession isn't it time I said to tell me about this I ought to know I think before she goes if it is not true you owe it to her I think but she shook her head I looked at the confession and from it to Miss Emily's pinched old face to whom it may concern on the 30th day of May 1911 I killed a woman here in this house I hope you will not find this until I am dead signed Emily Benton Anne was watching me I went to the mantel and got a match and then standing near the bed I lighted it and touched it to the paper it burned slowly a thin blue semicircle of fire that aided sway slowly across until there was but the corner I held I dropped it into the fireplace and watched it turn to black ash I may have fancied it I am always fancying things about Miss Emily but I will always think that she knew she drew a longer quieter breath and her eyes fixed and staring closed I think she died in the first sleep she had had in 24 hours I had expected Anne Boulder to show emotion for no one could doubt her attachment to Miss Emily but she only stood stoically by the bed for a moment and then turning swiftly went to the wall opposite and took Anne from the wall the wall not framed photograph Mrs. Craves had commented on Anne Boulder stood with a picture in her hand looking at it and suddenly she broke into sobs before me weeping and I got the impression that she wept not for Miss Emily but for many other things as though the piled-up grief of years had broken out at last she took the photograph away and I never saw it again Miss Emily was buried from her home I obliterated myself and her friends who were I felt her murderers came in and took charge of the tribute of much politeness but no cordiality and I think they fell toward me as I fell toward them they blamed me with a whole affair she left her property all to Anne Boulder to the astonished rage of the congregation which I'd expected the return of its dimes and quarters in the shape of a new altar or perhaps an organ not a scent to keep up the mausoleum or anything Mrs. Graves confided to me and nothing to the church all to that telephone girl who comes from no one knows where it's enough to make her father turn over in his grave it's a set people talking I can tell you Maggie's mental state during the days preceding the funeral was curious she coupled the most meticulous care as to the preparations for the ceremony any sort of loving gentleness when she decked Miss Emily's small old frame for its last rites with suspicion and hatred of Miss Emily living and this suspicion she held also against Anne Boulder yet she did not want to leave the house I do not know just what she expected to find we were cleaning up preparatory to going back to the city and I felt that at least a part of Maggie's enthusiasm for corners was due to the hope of locating more concealed papers she was rather less than polite to the bullet girl who was staying on at my invitation because the village was now flagrantly unfriendly and suspicious of her and for some strange reason the fact that Miss Emily's cat followed Anne everywhere convinced Maggie that her suspicions were justified it's like this Miss Agnes she said one morning leaning on the handle of a floor brush she had some power over the old lady and that's how she got the property and I'm saying nothing but she's no Christian that girl to see her and that cat going out night after night while snooping along on their tiptoes it ain't normal I had several visits for Martin's break since Miss Emily's death and after a time I realized that he was interested in Anne she was quite attractive in her morning clothes and there was something about her not in feature but in neatness and in the way her things had of, well, staying in place it's what reminded me of Miss Emily herself it was rather surprising too to see the way she fitted into her new surroundings and circumstances but I did not approve of Martin's attraction to her she had volunteered no information about herself she apparently had no people she was a lady I felt although with the exception of her new morning her clothing was shabby and her linen even coarse she held a key to the confession I knew that and I had no more hope of getting it from her than I had from the cat so I prepared to go back to the city with the mystery unsolved it seemed a pity when I had got so far with it I'd reconstructed the situation out of such bricks as I had the books and the cellar Mrs. Graves' story of the river the confession possibly the notebook and the handkerchief I had even some material left over in the form of the night intruder who may or may not have been the doctor and then having got so far I'd had to stop for lack of other bricks a day or two before I went back to the city Maggie came to me with a folded handkerchief in her hand is that yours? she asked I disclaimed it it was not very fine and looked rather yellow it's got a name on it Maggie volunteered right I think it is taint hers unless she's picked it up somewhere it just come out of the wash Maggie's eyes were snapping with suspicion there ain't any riots around here Miss Agnes she said under a false name riots likely hers in tracing the mystery of the confession I find that three apparently disconnected discoveries paved the way to its solution of these the handkerchief came first I was inclined to think that in some manner the handkerchief I had found in the book and the cellar had gotten to the wash but it was where I had placed it for safety in the wall closet in the library I brought it out and compared the two they were unlike save in the one regard the name right was clear enough for the one Maggie had found with it as a guide the other name was easily seen to be the same moreover both had been marked with the same hand yet on Anne Bollard being shown the one Maggie had found she disclaimed it don't you think someone dropped it she asked but I thought as I turned away that you took a step toward me when I stopped however and faced about she was intent on something outside the window and so it went I got nowhere and now by way of complication I felt my sympathy for Anne's loneliness turning to genuine interest she was so stoical so repressed and so lonely and she was tremendously proud her pride was vaguely reminiscent of Miss Emily's she bore her ostracism almost fiercely and yet there were times when I felt her eyes on me singularly gentle and appealing yet she volunteered nothing about herself I intended to finish the history of Bollard County before I left I disliked not finishing a book besides this one fascinated me with small complacence and almost loud virtue of the author he's satisfaction in Bollard County and his small hits at the world outside his patronage to those not of it and always when I began to read I turned to the inscription in Miss Emily's hand the hand of the confession and I wondered if she had really believed it all so on this day I found the name Bollard in the book it had belonged to the Reverend Samuel Therese's grandmother and he distinctly stated that she was the last of her line he inferred, indeed that since the line was to end it had chosen a fitting finish in his immediate progenitor that night at dinner I said Anne, are there any Bollards in this neighborhood now? I have never heard of any but I have not been here long it is not a common name I persisted but she received my statement in silence she had, as I have said rather a gift for silence that afternoon I was wondering about the garden snipping faded roses with Miss Emily's garden shears when I saw Maggie coming swiftly toward me when she caught my eye she beckoned to me Walk quiet Miss Agnes she said and don't say I didn't warn you she's in the library so feeling hatefully like a spy I went quietly over the lawn toward the library windows there were long ones to the floor and at first I made out nothing then I saw Anne she was on her knees following the border of the carpet with fingers that examined it inch by inch she turned as if she felt our eyes on her and saw us I shall never forget her face she looked stricken I turned away there was something in her eyes that made me think of Miss Emily lying among her pillows and waiting for me to say the thing she was dreading to hear I sent Maggie away with a gesture there was something in her purse lips that threatened danger for I felt then as if I had always known it and only just realized I knew it that somewhere in that room lay the answer to all questions lay Miss Emily's secret and I did not wish to learn it it was better to go on wondering to question and doubt and decide and decide again I was I think in a state of nervous terror by that time terror and apprehension while Miss Emily lived I had hoped to help but now it seemed too hatefully like accusing when she could not defend herself and there is another element that I am bound to acknowledge there was an element of jealousy of Anne Bullard both of us had tried to help Miss Emily she had fooled my attempt in her own endeavor I'm mistaken endeavor I felt but there was now to be no plummish in my efforts I would no longer pry or question or watch it was too late in a curious fashion each of us wished I think to prove the quality of her tenderness for the little old lady who was gone beyond all human tenderness so that evening after dinner I faced Anne in the library why not let things be as they are Anne I asked it can do no good whatever it is and I do not know why not let things rest someone may find it I replied someone who does not care as I as we care are you sure there is something she told me near the last I only don't know just where it is and if you find it it is a letter I shall burn it without reading although she drew a long breath I know what it contains if in any way to my hands I assured her I shall let you know and I shall not read it she looked thoughtful rather than grateful I hardly know she said I think she would want you to read it if it came to you it explains so much and it is a part of her plan you know of course that she had a plan it was a sort of arrangement she hesitated it was a sort of patch she made with God if you know what I mean so at night Maggie found the letter I had gotten upstairs and Anne was I think already asleep I heard what sounded like distant hammering and I went to the door someone was in the library below the light was shining out into the hall and my discovery of that was followed almost immediately by the faint splintering of wood rather outraged and alarmed I went back for my dressing-gown and as I left the room I confronted Maggie in the hallway she had an envelope in one hand and a hat-shirt in the other I found it so said briefly she held it out and I took it on the outside in Miss Emily's writing it said to whom it may concern it was sealed I turned it over in my hand while Maggie talked when I saw that girl crawling around she said seems to me I remembered all the twins seeing Miss Emily that day I found her running her finger along the base-board set aside to myself there's something more hidden and she don't know where it is but I do so I left to the base-board and this was behind it Anne heard her from her room and she went out soon afterward I heard her going down the stairs and called to her but she did not answer I closed the door on Maggie and stood in my room staring at the envelope I have wondered since whether Miss Emily had she lived would have put the responsibility on Providence for the discovery of her pitiful story so many of us blame the remorseless hand of destiny for what is so manifestly our own doing it was her own anxiety surely that led to the discovery in each instance yet I am certain that old Emily Benton died convinced that the higher hand than any on earth had erected the discovery of the confession Miss Emily has been dead for more than a year now to publish the letter can do her no harm in a way too I feel it may be the fulfillment of the strange pack she made that memory was the thing she most dreaded so she felt that by paying her penalty here she would be saved something beyond that sort of spiritual bookkeeping which most of us call religion Anne Sprague she is married now to Martin has I think some of Miss Emily's feeling about it although she denies it but I am sure that in consenting to the recording of Miss Emily's story she feels that she is doing what the gentle fatalist would call following the hand of Providence I read the letter that night in the library where the light was good it was a narrative not a letter strictly speaking it began abruptly I must sit down this thing as it happened I shall write it fully because I must get it off my mind I find that I am always composing it and that my lips move when I walk along the street or even when I am sitting in church how terrible if I should someday speak it aloud my great-grandmother was a Catholic she was a Bullard perhaps it is from her that I have this overwhelming impulse to confession and lately I've been terrified I must tell it or I shall shriek it out some day in the church during the litany from battle and murder and from sudden death good lord deliver us there was a space here when the writing began again time had elapsed the ink was different the writing more controlled what a terrible thing hate is it is a poison it penetrates the mind and the body and changes everything I who once thought I could hate no one now find that hate is my daily life my getting up and laying down my sleep, my waking from hatred envy and malice and all uncharitableness good lord deliver us must one suffer twice for the same thing is it not true that we pay but one penalty surely we pay either here beyond but not both all not both will this ever be found where shall I hide it for I have the feeling that I must hide it not destroy it as the catholic bears his sin with the priest my father once said that it is the healthful humiliation of the confessional that is its reason for existing if humiliation be a virtue I have copied the confession to this point but I find I cannot go on she was so merciless to herself so hideously calm so exact as to date and hours she had laid her life on the table and dissected it for the almighty I heard the story that night gently told and somehow I feel that that is the version by which Miss Emily will be judged if humiliation be a virtue I read and was about to turn the page when I heard Anne in the hall she was not alone I recognized Dr. Lingard's voice five minutes later I was sitting opposite him almost knee to knee and he was telling me how Miss Emily had come to commit her crime Anne Bullard was there standing on the hearth-brug she kept her eyes on me and after a time I realized that these two simple people feared me feared for me family's gentle memory feared that I good heaven would make the thing public first of all Miss Blakeston said a doctor one must have known the family to realize the situation it's pride in its own uprightness the virtue of the name what it stood for in Bolliver County she was raised on that abandoned could do no wrong because abandoned would do no wrong but there is another side also I doubt if any girl was ever raised as Miss Emily was she well she knew nothing at fifty she was as childlike and innocent as she was at ten she had practically never heard of vice the ugly things for her did not exist and all the time there was a deep and strong nature underneath she should have married and had children but there was no one here for her to marry I he smiled faintly I asked for her myself and was forbidden the house for years as a result you have heard of the brother of course you have I know you have found the books such an existence as the family life here was bound to have its reactions Carla was a reaction twenty-five years ago he ran away with a girl from the village he did not marry her I believe he was willing at one time but his father opposed it violently it would have been to recognize a thing he refused to recognize he turned suddenly to Anne don't you think this is going to be painful he asked why I know it all very well this girl the one Carla ran away with determined to make the family pay for that refusal she made them actually pay year by year Emily knew about it she had to pinch to make the payments the father sat in a sort of detached position in the center of Bolivar County and let her bear the brunt of it I shall never forget the day she learned there was a child it will it sickened her she had not known about those things and I imagine if we could know that that was the beginning of things and all the time there was a necessity for secrecy she had never known deceit and now she was obliged to practice it constantly she had no one to talk to her father beyond making entries of the amounts paid to the woman in the case had nothing to do with it she bore it all year after year and it ate like a cancer remember I never knew I would have done anything for her she never told me Carla lived hard and came back to die the father went I came every day and I never suspected only now and then I wondered about her she looked burned I don't know any other word then the night after Carla had been buried she telephoned for me it was eleven o'clock she met me out there in the hall and she said John, I've killed somebody I thought she was out of her mind but she opened the door and he turned and glanced at Anne please she said it was Anne's mother you have guessed it about Anne by now of course it seems that the funeral had taken the money from the payment that was due and there had been a threat of exposure and Emily had reached the breaking point I believe what she said but she had no intention of even striking her he can't take the act itself you have to take 25 years into account anyhow she picked up a chair and knocked the woman down and it killed her he ran his fingers through his heavy hair it should not have killed her he reflected there must have been some other weakness hard or something but it was a heavy chair I don't see how Emily his voice trailed off there we were he said with a long breath poor Emily and the other poor soul neither of them fundamentally at fault both victims I know about the books I put in hastily I could not have him going over that again you knew that too he gazed at me poor Emily he said she tried to atone she brought Anne here Anne told her the whole story it was a bad time all round but at last Anne saw the light the only one who would not see the light was Emily and at last she had done this confession idea I suspected it when she rented the house when I accused her of it she said I have given it the providence to decide if the confession is found I shall know I am to suffer and I shall not lift a hand to save myself so it went through the hours her fear which I still think was the terror that communicated itself to me the various clues which she, poor victim, had overlooked the articles laid carelessly in the books she had been reading and accidentally hidden with her brother's forbidden literature the books themselves with all the five years to destroy them and left untouched her own anxiety about the confession in the telephone box which led to our finding it her espionage of the house by means of the telephone the doctors night visit in search of the confession the daily penance for five years of the dead woman's photograph in her room all of these and her occasional weakening poor soul when she tried to change her handwriting against discovery and refused to allow the second telephone to be installed how clear it was how in a way inevitable and too how really best for her it had turned out for she had made a pact and she died believing that discovery here had come to be a punishment beyond Martin's prey came the next day I was in the library alone and he was with Anne in the garden when Maggie came into the room with a sorter of crab-apple jelly I wish you'd look at this she said if it's cooked too much it gets tough and she straightened suddenly and stood staring out through a window I'd thank you to look out and see the coloring son in our garden she said sharply and brought daylight too I... but I did not hear what else Maggie had to say I glanced out and Martin had raised the girl's face to his and was kissing her gently and very tenderly and then and again as with fear it is hard to put into words I felt come over me such a wave of contentment and happiness it made me close my eyes with a sheer relief and joy of it all was well the past was the past and out of its mistakes had come a beautiful thing and like the fear this joy was not mine it came to me I picked it up a thought without words sometimes I think about it and I wonder did little Miss Emily know end of chapter 4 end of the confession recorded by Winna Hathaway in Fayetteville, North Carolina