 THE BEAUTIFUL SUIT BY H. G. WELLS There was once a little man, whose mother made him a beautiful suit of clothes. It was green and gold, and woven so that I cannot describe how delicate and fine it was. And there was a tie of orange fluffiness that tied up under his chin, and the buttons in their newness shone like stars. He was proud and pleased by his suit, beyond measure, and stood before the long-looking glass when first he put it on, so astonished and delighted with it that he could hardly turn himself away. He wanted to wear it everywhere, and show it to all sorts of people. He thought over all the places he had ever visited, and all the scenes he had ever heard described, and tried to imagine what the feel of it would be if he were to go now to those scenes and places wearing his shining suit. And he wanted to go out forthwith into the long grass and the hot sunshine of the meadow wearing it, just to wear it. But his mother told him, no. She told him he must take great care of his suit, for never would he have another nearly so fine. He must save it and save it, and only wear it on rare and great occasions. It was his wedding suit, she said. And she took the buttons and twisted them up with tissue paper for fear their bright newness should be tarnished, and she tacked little guards over the cuffs and elbows, and wherever the suit was most likely to come to harm. He hated and resisted these things, but what could he do? And at last her warnings and persuasions had effect, and he consented to take off his beautiful suit and fold it into its proper creases, and put it away. It was almost as though he gave it up again. But he was always thinking of wearing it, and of the supreme occasions when some day it might be worn without the guards, without the tissue paper on the buttons, butterly and delightfully, never caring, beautiful beyond measure. One night, when he was dreaming of it after his habit, he dreamt he took the tissue paper from one of the buttons and found its brightness a little faded, and that distressed him mightily in his dream. He polished the poor faded button and polished it, and if anything, it grew duller. He woke up and lay awake, thinking of the brightness a little dulled, and wondering how he should feel if perhaps when the great occasion, whatever it might be, should arrive, one button should chance to be ever so little short of its first glittering freshness, and for days and days that thought remained with him distressingly. And when next his mother let him wear his suit, he was tempted and nearly gave way to the temptation just to fumble off one little bit of tissue paper, and see if indeed the buttons were keeping as bright as ever. He went trimly along on his way to church, full of this wild desire, for you must know that his mother did, with repeated and careful warnings, let him wear his suit at times, on Sundays, for example, to and fro from church, when there was no threatening of rain, no dust blowing nor anything to injure it, with its buttons covered and its protections tacked upon it, and a sunshade in his hand to shadow it if there seemed too strong a sunlight for its colors. And always after such occasions, he brushed it over and folded it exquisitely as she had taught him, and put it away again. Now all these restrictions his mother set to the wearing of his suit, he obeyed, always he obeyed them. Until one strange night he woke up and saw the moonlight shining outside his window. It seemed to him the moonlight was not common moonlight, nor the night a common night, and for a while he lay quite drowsily with this odd persuasion in his mind. Thought joined on to thought like things that whisper warmly in the shadows. Then he sat up in his little bed, suddenly very alert, with his heart beating very fast, and a quiver in his body from top to toe. He had made up his mind. He knew that now he was going to wear his suit as it should be worn. He had no doubt in the matter. He was afraid, terribly afraid, but glad, glad. He got out of his bed, and stood for a moment by the window looking at the moonshine, flooded garden, and trembling at the things he meant to do. The air was full of a minute clamour of crickets and murmurings of the infinitesimal shoutings of little living things. He went very gently across the creaking boards for fear that he might wake the sleeping house to the big dark clothes press where in his beautiful suit lay folded, and he took it out garment by garment and softly and very eagerly tore off its tissue paper covering, and its tacked protections, until there it was perfect and delightful as he had seen it when first his mother had given it to him a long time it seemed to go. Not a button had tarnished. Not a thread had faded on this dear suit of his. He was glad enough for weeping as in a noiseless hurry he put it on. And then back he went, soft and quick, to the window that looked out upon the garden, and stood there for a minute shining in the moonlight, with his buttons twinkling like stars, before he got out on the sill and, making as little of a rustling as he could, clamoured down to the garden path below. He stood before his mother's house, and it was white and nearly as plain as by day, with every window blind but his own shut like an eye that sleeps. The trees cast still shadows like intricate black lace upon the wall. The garden in the moonlight was very different from the garden by day. Moonshine was tangled in the hedges and stretched in phantom cobwebs from spray to spray. Every flower was gleaming white or crimson black, and the air was a quiver with a threading of small crickets and nightingales singing unseen in the depths of the trees. There was no darkness in the world but only warm, mysterious shadows, and all the leaves and spikes were edged and lined with iridescent jewels of dew. The night was warmer than any night had ever been. The heavens by some miracle at once vaster and nearer, and spite of the great ivory tinted moon that ruled the world, the sky was full of stars. The little man did not shout, nor sing, for all his infinite gladness. He stood for a time like one Austrian, and then with a queer small cry and holding out his arms, he ran out as if he would embrace at once the whole round immensity of the world. He did not follow the neat set paths that cut the garden squarely, but thrust across the beds and threw the wet, tall, scented herbs. Through the night stock and the nicotine and the clusters of phantom white malo flowers, and through the thickets of southern wooden lavender, and knee deep across a wide space of minyanet, he came to the great hedge and he thrust his way through it, and though the thorns of the brambles scored him deeply and tore threads from his wonderful suit, and though burrs and goosegrass and havers caught and clung to him, he did not care. He did not care, for he knew it was all part of the wearing for which he had longed. I am glad I wore my suit. Beyond the hedge he came to the duck pond, or at least to what was the duck pond by day. But by night it was a great bowl of silver moonshine, all noisy with singing frogs, of wonderful silver moonshine twisted and clotted with strange patternings, and the little man ran down into its waters between the thin black rushes, knee deep and waist deep into his shoulders, smiting the water to black and shining wavelets with either hand, swaying and shivering wavelets amidst which the stars were netted in the tangled reflections of the brooding trees upon the bank. He waited until he swam, and so he crossed the pond and came out upon the other side, trailing as it seemed to him, not duckweed, but very silver in long-clinging, dripping masses. Up he went through the transfigured tangles of the willow herb, and the uncut seeding grasses of the farther bank. He came glad and breathless into the high road. I am glad, he said, beyond measure, that I had clothes that fitted this occasion. The high road ran straight as an arrow flies, straight into the deep blue pit of sky beneath the moon, a white and shining road between the singing nightingales, and along it he went, running now and leaping, and now walking and rejoicing in the clothes his mother had made for him with tireless, loving hands. The road was deep in dust, but that for him was only soft whiteness, and as he went to great dim moth came fluttering round his wet and shimmering and hastening figure. At first he did not heed the moth, and then he waved his hands at it and made a sort of dance with it as it circled round his head. Soft moth, he cried, dear moth, and wonderful night, wonderful night of the world, do you think my clothes are beautiful, dear moth? As beautiful as your scales and all this silver vester of the earth and sky, and the moth circled closer and closer until at last its velvet wings just brushed his lips. And next morning they found him dead, with his neck broken in the bottom of the stone pit, with his beautiful clothes, a little bloody, and foul, and stained with the duckweed from the pond. But his face was a face of such happiness that had you seen it, you would have understood indeed how that he had died happy, never knowing that cool and streaming silver for the duckweed in the pond. End of The Beautiful Suit, recording by Sean Michael Hogan, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bologna Times. The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe. For the most wild yet most homely narrative, which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my various senses reject their own evidence. Yet mad I am not, and very surely do I not dream. But tomorrow I die, and today I would unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences these events have terrified, have tortured, have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me they have presented little but horror. To many they will seem less terrible than barokes. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found, that will reduce my phantasm to the commonplace. Some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects. From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of my character grew with my growth, and in my manhood I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him, who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere man. I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, goldfish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat. The latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tensured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point, and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered. Pluto, this was the cat's name, was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets. Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character, through the instrumentality of the feigned intemperance, had, I blushed to confess it, experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew day by day more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when, by accident or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me, for what disease is like alcohol? And at length, even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish, even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper. One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him, when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body, and, in more than fiendish malevolence, Jen nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame. I took from my waistcoat pocket a penknife, opened it, and grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket. I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity. When reason returned with the morning, when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch, I experienced a sentiment, half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty. But it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling. And the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed. In the meantime, the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but as might be expected fled an extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of perverseness. Of the spirit, philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart, one of the indivisible primary faculties or sentiments which give direction to the character of man. Who has not a hundred times found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination in the teeth of our best judgment to violate that which is law merely because we understand it to be such? The spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself, to offer violence to its own nature, to do wrong for the wrong sake only that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning in cool blood I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree, hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes and with the bitterest remorse at my heart hung it because I knew that it loved me and because I felt it had given me no reason of offense hung it because I knew that in doing so I was committing a sin, a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it if such a thing were possible even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the most merciful and most terrible God. On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up and I resigned myself, thencefore, to despair. I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. The exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rusted the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire, a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words strange, singular, and other similar expressions excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in, bought relief, upon the white surface the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvelous. There was a rope about the animal's neck. When I first beheld this apparition, for I could scarcely regard it as less. My wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd, by someone of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, thrown open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster, the lime of which, with the flams and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it. Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the last fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat, and during this period there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed but was not remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance with which to supply its place. One night, as I sat, half-stupified, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hog's heads of djinn, or of rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hog's head for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not soon perceived the object thereupon. I approached it and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat, a very large one, fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body, but this cat had a large, although indefinite, splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast. Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This then was the very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to Percius it of the landlord, but this person made no claim to it, knew nothing of it, had never seen it before. I continued my caresses, and when I prepared to go home, the animal evenced a disposition to accompanying me. I permitted it to do so, occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it reached the house, it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favorite with my wife. For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated, but I know not how or why it was its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed me. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature, a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike or otherwise violently ill use it. But gradually, very gradually, I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence as from the breath of a pestilence. What added no doubt to my hatred of the beast was the discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed in a high degree that humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait and the source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures. With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk, it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamor in this manner to my breast. At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from doing so, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly, let me confess it at once, by absolute dread of the beast. This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil, and yet I should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own, yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own, that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me had been heightened by one of the merest chimeras it would be impossible to conceive. My wife had called my attention, more than once, to the character of the mark of white hair of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite, but by slow degrees, degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time my reason struggled to reject as fanciful, it had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object that I shuddered to name, and for this, above all, I loathed and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared. It was now, I say, the image of a hideous, of a ghastly thing, of the gallows, a mournful and terrible engine of horror and of crime, of agony and of death, and now I was indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere humanity, and a brute beast whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed, a brute beast to work out for me, for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God, so much of insufferable woe, alas, neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of rest any more. During the former the creature left me no moment alone, and in the latter I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight, an incarnate nightmare that I had no power to shake off, incumbent eternally upon my heart. Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed, evil thoughts became my soul intimates, the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased a hatred of all things and of all mankind, while, from the sudden frequent and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself my uncomplaining wife, alas, was the most unusual and the most patient of sufferers. One day she accompanied me upon some household errand into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting in acts and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed in my hand, I aimed below at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded by the interference into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the ax in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan. This hideous murder accomplished I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into my new fragments and destroying them by fire. At another I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard, about packing it in a box, as if merchandised with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hid upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellar, as the monks of the Middle Ages are recorded to have walled up their victims. For a purpose such as this, the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection caused by a false chimney or fireplace that had been filled up and made to resemble the red of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect anything suspicious. And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crowbar I easily dislodged the bricks, and having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall I propped it in that position, while with little trouble I relayed the whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new brickwork. When I had finished I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest apparent of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly and said to myself, here at last then, my labour has not been in vain. My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness, for I had, at length, firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it at the moment there could have been no doubt of its fate. But it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and forebeau to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night, and thus, for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept. I slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul. The second and third day passed, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a free man. The monster and terror had fled the premises for ever. I should behold it no more. My happiness was supreme. The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been instituted. But of course nothing was to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured. Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make a rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure however, in the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment, whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied, and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say, if but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness. Gentlemen, I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the by, gentlemen, this is a very well constructed house. In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all. I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls are you going, gentlemen. These walls are solidly put together. And here, through the mere frenzy of bravado, I wrapped heavily with a cane, which I held in my hand, upon the very portion of the brickwork behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom. But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the archfiend. No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb by a cry of at first muffled and broken like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman, a howl, a wailing shriek, half of horror, and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation. Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak, swanning I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and flotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb. And of the black cat. The first time one looked at Elspeth, one was not pre-possessed. She was thin and brown, her nose turned slightly upward, her toes went in just a perceptible degree, and her hair was perfectly straight. But when one looked longer one perceived that she was a charming little creature. The straight hair was as fine as silk, and hung in funny little braids down her back. There was not a flaw in her soft brown skin, and her mouth was tender and shapely. But her particular charm lay in a look which she habitually had, of seeming to know curious things, such as not as allotted to ordinary persons to know. One felt tempted to say to her, What are these beautiful things which you know, and of which others are ignorant? What is it you see with those wise and placid eyes? Why is it that everybody loves you? Elspeth was my little god-child, and I knew her better than I knew any other child in the world. But still I could not truthfully say that I was familiar with her, for to me her spirit was like a fair and fragrant road in the midst of which I might walk in peace and joy, but where I was continually to discover something new. The last time I saw her quite well and strong was over in the woods where she had gone with her two little brothers and her nurse to pass the hottest weeks of summer. I followed her, foolish old creature that I was, just to be near her, for I needed to dwell where the sweet aroma of her life could reach me. One morning when I came for my room, limping a little because I am not so young as I used to be, and the lake wind works havoc with me, my little god-child came dancing to me singing. Come with me, and I'll show you my places, my places, my places." Miriam, when she chanted by the Red Sea, might have been more exultant, but she could not have been more bewitching. Of course I knew what places were, because I had once been a little girl myself, but unless you were acquainted with the real meaning of places it would be useless to try to explain. Whether you know places, or you do not, just as you understand the meaning of poetry, or you do not, there are things in the world which cannot be taught. Elspeth's two tiny brothers were present, and I took one by each hand and followed her. No sooner had we got out of doors in the woods than a sort of mystery fell upon the world and upon us. We were cautioned to move silently, and we did so, avoiding the crunching of dry twigs. The fairies hate noise! whispered my little Godchild, her eyes narrowing like a cat's. I must get my wand first thing I do, she said in an awed undertone, it is useless to try to do anything without a wand. The tiny boys were profoundly impressed, and indeed so was I. I felt that at last I should, if I behave properly, see the fairies, which had hitherto avoided my materialistic gaze. It was an enchanting moment, for there appeared just then to be nothing commonplace about life. There was a swale nearby, and into this the little girl plunged. I could see her red straw hat bobbing about among the tall rushes, and I wondered if there were snakes. Do you think there are snakes? I asked one of the tiny boys. If there are, he said with conviction, they won't dare hurt her. He convinced me, I feared no more. Presently Ellsworth came out of the swale. In her hand was a brown cactail perfectly full and round. She carried it, as queens carry their sceptres, the beautiful queens we dream of in our youth. Come! she commanded, and waved the sceptre in a fine manner. So we followed, each tiny boy gripping my hand tight. We were all three a trifle-ord. Ellsworth led us into a dark underbrush. The branches, as they flew back in our faces, left them wet with dew. A wee path made by the girl's dear feet guided our footsteps. Perfumes of elderberry and wild cucumber sent to the air. A bird, frightened from its nest, made frantic cries above our heads. The underbrush thickened. Presently the gloom of the hemlocks was over us, and in the midst of the shadowy green a tulip tree flaunted its leaves. It was boomed and broke upon the shore below. There was a growing dampness as we went on, treading very lightly. A little green snake ran coquettishly from us. A fat and glossy squirrel tattered at us from a safe height, stroking his whiskers with a complacent air. At length we reached the place. It was a circle of velvet grass, bright as the first blades of spring, delicately fine sea ferns. The sunlight, falling down the shaft between the hemlocks, flooded it with softened light, and made the forest round about look like a deep purple velvet. My little godchild stood in the midst and raised her wand impressively. "'This is my place,' she said with a sort of wonderful gladness in her tone. "'This is where I come to the fairy-balls. Do you see them?' "'See what?' whispered one tiny boy. "'The fairies!' There was a silence. The older boy pulled at my skirt. "'Do you see them?' he asked, his voice trembling with expectancy. "'Indeed,' I said. "'I fear I am too old and wicked to see fairies, and yet—' "'Are their hats red?' "'They are,' laughed my little girl. "'The hats are red, and as small—as small!' She held up the pearly nail of her wee finger to give us the correct idea. "'And their shoes, are they very pointed at the toes? "'Are very pointed. "'And their garments are green, as green as grass. "'And they blow little horns. "'The sweetest little horns. "'I think I see them,' I cried. "'We think we see them too,' said the tiny boys, laughing imperfectly. "'And you hear their horns, don't you?' My little godchild asked somewhat anxiously. "'Don't we hear their horns?' I asked the tiny boys. "'We think we hear their horns,' they cried. "'Don't you think we do?' "'It must be we do,' I said. "'Aren't we very, very happy?' We all laughed softly. Then we kissed each other, and Elspeth led us out, her wand high in the air. And so my feet found the lost path to Arcady. The next day I was called to the Pacific Coast, and duty kept me there till well into December. A few days before the date set for my return to my home, a letter came from Elspeth mother. "'Our little girl is gone into the unknown,' she wrote. "'That unknown in which she seemed to be forever trying to pry. We knew she was going, and we told her. She was quite brave, but she begged us to try some way to keep her till after Christmas. "'My presents are not finished yet,' she made, Moan. "'And I did so want to see what I was going to have. "'You can't have a very happy Christmas without me, I should think. Can you arrange to keep me somehow till after then?' We could not arrange, either with God in heaven or science upon earth, and she is gone. She was only my little God-child, and I am an old maid, with no business fretting over children, but it seemed as if the medium of light and beauty had been taken from me. Through this crystal soul I have perceived whatever was loveliest. However, what was, was. I returned to my home and took up a course of Egyptian history, and determined to concern myself with nothing this side, the Ptolemies. Her mother has told me how, on Christmas Eve, as usual, she and Elspas' father filled the stockings of the little ones, and hung them, where they had always hung them, by the fireplace. They had little heart for the task, but they had been prodigal that year in their expenditures, and had heaped upon the two tiny boys all the treasures they thought would appeal to them. They asked themselves how they could have been so insane previously as to exercise economy at Christmas time, and what they meant by not getting Elspas the auto-harp she had asked for the year before. "'And now,' began her father thinking of harps, but he could not complete this sentence, of course, and the two went on passionately, and almost angrily with their task. There were two stockings and two piles of toys. Two is very little.' They went away and left the darkened room, and after a time they slept, after a long time. Perhaps that was about the time the boys awoke, and putting on their little dressing gowns and bed slippers made a dash for the room where the Christmas things were always placed. The older one carried a candle, which gave out a feeble light. The other followed behind through the silent house. They were very impatient and eager, but when they reached the door of the sitting room they stopped, for they saw that another child was before them. It was a delicate little creature, sitting in her white nightgown, with two rumple, funny braids falling down her back, and she seemed to be weeping. As they watched she rose, and putting out one slender finger as the child does when she counts, she made sure over the night she was sitting in the house once, she made sure over and over again, three sad times, that there were only two stockings and two piles of toys, only those and no more. The little figure looked so familiar that the boys started toward it, but just then, putting up her arm and bowing her face in it, as Elspeth had been used to do when she wept or was offended, the little thing glided away and went out. That's what the boys said. It went out, as a candle goes out. They ran and woke their parents with the tail, and all the house was searched in a wonderment and disbelief and hope and tumult, but nothing was found. For nights they watched, but there was only the silent house, only the empty rooms. They told the boys they must have been mistaken, but the boys shook their heads. "'We know our Elspeth,' said they, "'it was our Elspeth, crying because she hadn't no stockings and no toys, and we would have given her all ours, only she went out, just went out.' Alack! The next Christmas I helped with the little festival. It was none of my affair, but I asked to help, and they let me, and when we were all through there were three stockings and three piles of toys, and in the largest one was all the things that I could think of that my dear child would love. I locked the boys' chamber that night, and I slept on the divan in the parlour of the sitting-room. I slept but little, and the night was very still. So windless and white and still, that I think I must have heard the slightest noise, yet I heard none. Had I been in my grave I think my ears would not have remained more unsoluted. Yet when daylight came and I went to unlock the boys' bed-chamber door I saw that the stocking and all the treasures which I had bought for my little God-child were gone. There was not a vestige of them remaining. Of course we told the boys nothing. As for me, after dinner I went home and buried myself once more in my history, and so interested was I that midnight came without my knowing it. I should not have looked up at all, I suppose, to become aware of the time had it not been for a faint, sweet sound as of a child striking a stringed instrument. It was so delicate and remote that I hardly heard it, but so joyous and tender that I could not but listen, and when I heard it a second time it seemed as if I had caught the echo of a child's laugh. At first I was puzzled. Then I remembered the little auto-harp I had placed among the other things in the pile of vanished toys. I said aloud, Farewell, dear little ghost, go rest, rest in joy, dear little ghost, Farewell, farewell. That was years ago, but there has been silence since. Elspeth was always an obedient little thing. End of Their Dear Little Ghost Recording by Linda Ferguson This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Bernard Spiel. The Empty House by Algernon Blackwood. Certain houses, like certain persons, manage somehow to proclaim at once their character for evil. In the case of the latter, no particular feature need betray them. They may boast an open countenance and an ingenuous smile. And yet a little of their company leaves the unalterable conviction that there is something radically amiss with their being. That they are evil. Willy-nilly they seem to communicate an atmosphere of secret and wicked thoughts which makes those in their immediate neighborhood shrink from them as from a thing diseased. And perhaps with houses the same principle is operative. And it is the aroma of evil deeds committed under a particular roof long after the actual doers have passed away that makes the goose flesh come and the hair rise. Something of the original passion of the evil doer and of the horror felt by his victim enters the heart of the innocent watcher and he becomes suddenly conscious of tingling nerves, creeping skin, and a chilling of the blood. He is terror-stricken without apparent cause. There was manifestly nothing in the external appearance of this particular house to bear out the tales of the horror that was said to reign within. It was neither lonely nor unkempt. It stood crowded into a corner of the square and looked exactly like the houses on either side of it. It had the same number of windows as its neighbors, the same balcony overlooking the garden, the same white steps leading up to the heavy black front door, and in the rear there was the same narrow strip of green with neat box borders running up to the wall that divided it from the backs of the adjoining houses. Apparently, too, the number of chimney pots on the roof was the same, the breadth and angle of the eaves and even the height of the dirty area railings. And yet this house in the square that seemed precisely similar to its fifty ugly neighbors was as a matter of fact entirely different, horribly different. Wherein lay this marked invisible difference is impossible to say. It cannot be ascribed wholly to the imagination because persons who had spent some time in the house knowing nothing of the facts had declared positively that certain rooms were so disagreeable that they would rather die than enter them again and that the atmosphere of the whole house produced in them the symptoms of a genuine terror while the series of innocent tenants who had tried to live in it and been forced to decamp at the shortest possible notice was indeed little less than a scandal in the town. When short house arrived to pay a weekend visit to his aunt Julia and her little house on the seafront at the other end of the town, he found her charged to the brim with mystery and excitement. He had only received her telegram that morning and he had come anticipating boredom but the moment he touched her hand and kissed her apple skin wrinkled cheek he caught the first wave of her electrical condition. The impression deepened when he learned that there were to be no other visitors and that he had been telegraphed for with a very special object. Something was in the wind and thus something would doubtless bear fruit for this elderly spinster aunt with a mania for psychical research had brains as well as willpower and by hook or by crook she usually managed to accomplish her ends. The revelation was made soon after tea when she sidled close up to him as they paced slowly along the seafront in the dusk. I've got the keys. She announced in a delighted yet half awesome voice. Got them till Monday. The keys of the bathing machine or he asked innocently looking from the sea to the town. Nothing brought her so quickly to the point as feigning stupidity. Neither, she whispered. I've got the keys of the haunted house in the square and I'm going there tonight. Shorthouse was conscious of the slightest possible tremor down his back. He dropped his teasing tone. Something in her voice and manner thrilled him. She was in earnest. But you can't go alone. He began. That's why I wired for you. She said with decision. He turned to look at her. The ugly, lined, enigmatico face was alive with excitement. There was the glow of genuine enthusiasm round it like a halo. The eyes shone. He caught another wave of her excitement and a second tremor, more marked than the first, accompanied it. Thanks, Anjulia, he said politely. Thanks awfully. I should not dare to go quite alone. She went on raising her voice. But with you, I should enjoy it immensely. You're afraid of nothing, I know. Thanks so much, he said again. Is anything likely to happen? A great deal has happened, she whispered. Though it's been most cleverly hushed up. Three tenants have come and gone in the last few months and the house is said to be empty for good now. In spite of himself, Short House became interested. His aunt was so very much in earnest. The house is very old indeed, she went on. And the story, an unpleasant one, dates a long way back. It has to do with a murder committed by a jealous stableman who had some affair with a servant in the house. One night he managed to secrete himself in the cellar. And when everyone was asleep, he crept upstairs to the servant's quarters, chased the girl down to the next landing, and before anyone could come to the rescue, threw her bodily over the banisters into the hall below. And the stableman? Was caught, I believe, and hanged for murder. But it all happened a century ago and I've not been able to get more details of the story. Short House now felt his interest thoroughly aroused, but though he was not particularly nervous for himself, he hesitated a little on his aunt's account. On one condition, he said at length. Nothing will prevent my going, she said firmly. But I may as well hear your condition, that you guarantee your power of self-control if anything really horrible happens. I mean that you are sure you won't get too frightened. Jim, she said scornfully. I'm not young, I know, nor are my nerves, but with you I should be afraid of nothing in the world. This, of course, settled it, for Short House had no pretensions to being other than a very ordinary young man, and an appeal to his vanity was irresistible. He agreed to go. Instinctively, by a sort of subconscious preparation, he kept himself and his forces well in hand the whole evening, compelling an accumulative reserve of control by that nameless inward process of gradually putting all the emotions away and turning the key upon them. A process difficult to describe, but wonderfully effective, as all men who have lived through severe trials of the inner man well understand. Later it stood him in good stead. But it was not until half past ten when they stood in the hall well in the glare of friendly lamps and still surrounded by comforting human influences that he had to make the first call upon this store of collected strength. For once the door was closed and he saw the deserted silent street stretching away white in the moonlight before them, it came to him clearly that the real test that night would be in dealing with two fears instead of one. He would have to carry his ant's fear as well as his own, and as he glanced down at her sphinx-like countenance and realized that it might assume no pleasant aspect in the rush of real terror, he felt satisfied with only one thing in the whole adventure, that he had confidence in his own will and power to stand against any shock that might come. Slowly they walked along the empty streets of the town. A bright autumn moon silvered the roofs, casting deep shadows. There was no breath of wind, and the trees in the formal gardens by the sea front watched them silently as they passed along. To his ant's occasional remarks, Short House made no reply, realizing that she was simply surrounding herself with mental buffers, saying ordinary things to prevent herself from thinking of extraordinary things. Few windows showed lights, and from scarcely a single chimney came smoke or sparks. Short House had already begun to notice everything, even the smallest details. Presently they stopped at the street corner and looked up at the name on the side of the house full of the moonlight, and with one accord, but without remark, turned into the square and crossed over to the side of it that lay in shadow. The number of the house is 13, whispered a voice at his side, and neither of them made the obvious reference, but passed across the broad sheet of moonlight and began to march up the pavement in silence. It was about halfway up the square that Short House felt an arm slipped quietly, but significantly into his own, and knew then that their adventure had begun in earnest and that his companion was already yielding imperceptibly to the influences against them. She needed support. A few minutes later they stopped before a tall, narrow house that rose before them into the night, ugly in shape and painted a dingy white. Shutterless windows without blinds stared down upon them, shining here and there in the moonlight. There were weather streaks in the wall and cracks in the paint, and the balcony bowled out from the first floor a little unnaturally. But beyond this generally forlorn appearance of an unoccupied house, there was nothing at first sight to single out this particular mansion for the evil character it had most certainly acquired. Taking a look over their shoulders to make sure that they had not been followed, they went boldly up the steps and stood against the huge black door that fronted them forbiddingly. But the first wave of nervousness was now upon them and short house fumbled a long time with the key before he could fit it into the lock at all. For a moment, if truth were told, they both hoped it would not open, for they were a prey to various unpleasant emotions as they stood there on the threshold of their ghostly adventure. Short house shuffling with the key and hampered by the steady weight on his arm certainly felt the solemnity of the moment. It was as if the whole world for all experience seemed at that instant concentrated in his own consciousness were listening to the grating noise of that key. A stray puff of wind wandering down the empty street woke a momentary rustling in the trees behind them, but otherwise this rattling of the key was the only sound audible. And at last it turned in the lock and the heavy door swung open and revealed a yawning gulf of darkness beyond. With a last glance at the mulet square they passed quickly in and the door slammed behind them with a roar that echoed prodigiously through empty halls and passages. But instantly with the echoes another sound made itself heard and Aunt Julia leaned suddenly so heavily upon him that he had to take a step backwards to save himself from falling. A man had coughed close beside them, so close that it seemed they must have been actually by his side in the darkness. With the possibility of practical jokes in his mind, short house at once swung his heavy stick in the direction of the sound, but it met nothing more solid than air. He heard his aunt give a little gasp beside him. There's someone here, she whispered. I heard him. Be quiet, he said sternly. It was nothing but the noise of the front door. Oh, get a light, quick! She added as her nephew, fumbling with a box of matches, opened it upside down and let them all fall with a rattle on the stone floor. The sound, however, was not repeated and there was no evidence of retreating footsteps. In another minute they had a candle burning using an empty end of a cigar case as a holder and when the first flare had died down he held the impromptu lamp aloft and surveyed the scene. And it was dreary enough in all conscience for there is nothing more desolate in all the abodes of men than an unfurnished house dimly lit, silent and forsaken and yet tenanted by rumour with the memories of evil and violent histories. They were standing in a wide hallway, on their left was the open door of a spacious dining room and in front the hall ran, ever narrowing into a long, dark passage that led apparently to the top of the kitchen stairs. The broad, uncarpeted staircase rose in a sweep before them. Everywhere draped in shadows, except for a single spot about halfway up where the moonlight came in through the window and fell on a bright patch on the boards. This shaft of light shed a faint radiance above and below it, lending to the objects within its reach a misty outline that was infinitely more suggestive and ghostly than complete darkness. Filtered moonlight always seems to paint faces on the surrounding gloom and a short house peered up into the well of darkness and thought of the countless empty rooms and passages in the upper part of the old house. He caught himself longing again for the safety of the moonlit square or the cozy, bright drawing room they had left an hour before. Then realizing that these thoughts were dangerous, he thrust them away again and summoned all his energy for concentration on the present. And Julia, he said aloud severely, we must now go through the house from top to bottom and make a thorough search. The echoes of his voice died away slowly all over the building and in the intense silence that followed, he turned to look at her. In the candlelight he saw that her face was already ghastly pale. But she dropped his arm for a moment and said in a whisper, stepping close in front of him. I agree. We must be sure there's no one hiding. That's the first thing. She spoke with evident effort and he looked at her with admiration. You feel quite sure of yourself. It's not too late. I think so, she whispered, her eyes shifting nervously toward the shadows behind. Quite sure, only one thing. What's that? You must never leave me alone for an instant. As long as you understand that any sound or appearance must be investigated at once for to hesitate means to admit fear. That is fatal. Agreed, she said a little shakily after a moment's hesitation. I'll try. Arm in arm, short house holding the dripping candle and the stick while his aunt carried the cloak over her shoulders, figures of utter comedy to all but themselves. They began a systematic search. Stealthily, walking on tiptoe and shading the candle, lest it should betray their presence through the shutterless windows, they went first into the big dining room. It was not a stick of furniture to be seen. Bare walls, ugly mantelpieces and empty grates stared at them. Everything they felt resented their intrusion, watching them as it were with veiled eyes. Whispers followed them, shadows flitted noiselessly to right and left. Something seemed ever at their back, watching, waiting an opportunity to do them injury. There was the inevitable sense that operations which went on when the room was empty had been temporarily suspended till they were well out of the way again. The whole dark interior of the old building seemed to become a malignant presence that rose up, warning them to desist and mind their own business. Every moment the strain on the nerves increased. Out of the gloomy dining room, they passed through large folding doors into a sort of library or smoking room, wrapped equally in silence, darkness, and the dust. And from this they regained the hall near the top of the back stairs. Here a pitch-black tunnel opened before them into the lower regions and, it must be confessed, they hesitated, but only for a minute. With the worst of the night still to come, it was essential to turn from nothing. And Julia stumbled at the top step of the dark descent, ill-lit by the flickering candle, and even the short house felt at least half the decision go out of his legs. Come on, he said, parameterily, and his voice ran on and lost itself in the dark empty spaces below. I'm coming, she faltered, catching his arm with unnecessary violence. They went a little unsteadily down the stone steps, a cold, damp air meeting them in the face, close and malodorous. The kitchen into which the stairs led along a narrow passage was large with a lofty ceiling. Several doors opened out of it, some into cupboards with empty jars still standing on the shelves, and others into horrible little ghostly back offices, each colder and less inviting than the last. Black beetles scurried over the floor, and once, when they knocked against a deal table standing in a corner, something about the size of a cat jumped down with a Russian fled, scampering across the stone floor into the darkness. Everywhere there was a sense of recent occupation, an impression of sadness and gloom. Leaving the main kitchen, they next went towards the scullery. The door was standing ajar, and as they pushed it open to its full extent, Aunt Julia uttered a piercing scream, which she instantly tried to stifle by placing her hand over her mouth. For a second, Short House stood stock still, catching his breath. He felt as if his spine had suddenly become hollow and someone had filled it with particles of ice. Facing them directly in their way between the doorposts, stood the figure of a woman. She had disheveled hair and wildly staring eyes, and her face was terrified and white as death. She stood there motionless for the space of a single second. Then the candle flickered and she was gone, gone utterly, and the door framed nothing but empty darkness. Only the beastly jumping candlelight, he said quickly in a voice that sounded like someone else's, and was only half under control. Come on, Aunt, there's nothing there. He dragged her forward with a clattering of feet and a great appearance of boldness they went on, but over his body the skin moved as if crawling ants covered it, and he knew by the weight on his arm that he was supplying the force of locomotion for two. The scullery was cold, bare, and empty, more like a large prison cell than anything else. They went round it, tried the door into the yard and the windows, but found them all fastened securely. His aunt moved beside him like a person in a dream. Her eyes were tightly shut, and she seemed merely to follow the pressure of his arm. Her courage filled him with amazement. At the same time he noticed that a certain odd change had come over her face, a change which somehow evaded his power of analysis. There's nothing here, auntie, he repeated aloud quickly. Let's go upstairs and see the rest of the house. Then we'll choose a room to wait up in. She followed him obediently, keeping close to his side and they locked the kitchen door behind them. It was a relief to get up again. In the hall that was more light than before, for the moon had traveled a little further down the stairs. Cautiously they began to go up into the dark vault of the upper house, the boards creaking under their weight. On the first floor they found the large double drawing rooms, a search of which revealed nothing. Here also was no sign of furniture or recent occupancy, nothing but dust and neglect and shadows. They opened the big folding doors between front and back drawing rooms and then came out again to the landing and went on upstairs. They had not gone up more than a dozen steps when they both simultaneously stopped to listen, looking into each other's eyes with a new apprehension across the flickering candle flame. From the room they had left hardly 10 seconds before it came the sound of doors quietly closing. It was beyond all question, they heard the booming noise that accompanies the shutting of heavy doors followed by the sharp catching of the latch. We must go back and see, said Short House briefly in a low tone and turning to go downstairs again. Somehow she managed to drag after him, her feet catching in her dress, her face livid. When they entered the front drawing room it was plain that the folding doors had been closed half a minute before. Without hesitation Short House opened them. He almost expected to see someone facing him in the back room but only darkness and cold air met him. They went through both rooms finding nothing unusual. They tried in every way to make the doors close of themselves but there was not wind enough even to set the candle flame flickering. The doors would not move without strong pressure. All was silent as the grave. Undeniably the rooms were utterly empty and the house utterly still. It's beginning, whispered a voice at his elbow which he hardly recognized as his aunts. He nodded acquiescence taking out his watch to note the time. It was 15 minutes before midnight. He made the entry of exactly what had occurred in his notebook setting the candle in its case upon the floor in order to do so. It took a moment or two to balance it safely against the wall. Aunt Julia always declared that at this moment she was not actually watching him but had turned her head towards the inner room where she fancied she heard something moving but at any rate both positively agreed that there came a sound of rushing feet heavy and very swift and the next instant the candle was out. But to Shorthouse himself had come more than this and he has always thanked his fortunate stars that it came to him alone and not to his aunt too. For as he rose from the stooping position of balancing the candle and before it was actually extinguished a face thrust itself forward so close to his own that he could almost have touched it with his lips. It was a face working with passion, a man's face dark with thick features and angry savage eyes. It belonged to a common man and it was evil in its ordinary normal expression, no doubt but as he saw it alive with intense aggressive emotion it was a malignant and terrible human countenance. There was no movement of the air, nothing but the sound of rushing feet, stocking or muffled feet, the apparition of the face and the almost simultaneous extinguishing of the candle. In spite of himself, Shorthouse uttered a little cry nearly losing his balance as his aunt clunked to him with her whole weight in one moment of real uncontrollable terror. She made no sound but simply seized him bodily. Unfortunately however she had seen nothing but had only heard the rushing feet for her control returned almost at once and he was able to disentangle himself and strike a match. The shadows ran away on all sides before the glare and his aunt stooped down and groped for the cigar case with a precious candle. Then they discovered that the candle had not been blown out at all. It had been crushed out. The wick was pressed down into the wax which was flattened as if by some smooth heavy instrument. How his companion so quickly overcame her terror Shorthouse never properly understood but his admiration for her self-control increased tenfold and at the same time served to feed his own dying flame for which he was undeniably grateful. Equally inexplicable to him was the evidence of physical force they had just witnessed. He at once suppressed the memory of stories he had heard of physical mediums and their dangerous phenomena. For if these were true and either his aunt or himself was unwittingly a physical medium, it meant that they were simply aiding to focus the forces of a haunted house already charged to the brim. It was like walking with unprotected lamps among uncovered stores of gunpowder. So with as little reflection as possible he simply relit the candle and went up to the next floor. The arm in his trembled, it is true and his own tread was often uncertain but they went on with thoroughness and after a search revealing nothing they climbed the last flight of stairs to the top floor of all. Here they found the perfect nest of small servants rooms with broken pieces of furniture, dirty cane bottom chairs, chests of drawers, cracked mirrors and decrepit bedsteads. The rooms had low sloping ceilings already hung here and there with cobwebs, small windows and badly plastered walls, a depressing and dismal region which they were glad to leave behind. It was on the stroke of midnight when they entered a small room on the third floor close to the top of the stairs and arranged to make themselves comfortable for the remainder of their adventure. It was absolutely bare and was said to be the room then used as a clothes closet into which the infuriated groom had chased his victim and finally caught her. Outside, across the narrow landing, began the stairs leading up to the floor above and the servants quarters where they had just searched. In spite of the chilliness of the night there was something in the air of this room that cried for an open window but there was more than this. Short House could only describe it by saying that he felt less master of himself here than in any other part of the house. There was something that acted directly on the nerves, tiring the resolution and feebling the will. He was conscious of this result before he had been in the room five minutes and it was in the short time they stayed there that he suffered the wholesale depletion of his vital forces which was for himself the chief horror of the whole experience. They put the candle on the floor of the cupboard leaving the door a few inches ajar so that there was no glare to confuse the eyes and no shadow to shift about on walls and ceiling. Then they spread the cloak on the floor and sat down to wait with their backs against the wall. Short House was within two feet of the door onto the landing. His position commanded a good view of the main staircase leading down into the darkness and also of the beginning of the servants stairs going to the floor above. The heavy stick lay beside him within easy reach. The moon was now high above the house. Through the open window they could see the comforting stars like friendly eyes watching in the sky. One by one the clocks of the town struck midnight and when the sounds died away the deep silence of a windless night fell again over everything. Only the boom of the sea, far away, and legubrious filled the air with hollow murmurs. Inside the house the silence became awful. Awful, he thought, because any minute now it might be broken by sounds pretending terror. The strain of waiting told more and more severely on the nerves. They talked in whispers when they talked at all for their voices allowed sounded queer and unnatural. A chilliness, not altogether due to the night air, invaded the room and made them cold. The influences against them, whatever these might be, were slowly robbing them of self-confidence and the power of decisive action. Their forces were on the wane and the possibility of real fear took on a new and terrible meaning. He began to tremble for the elderly woman by his side whose pluck could hardly save her beyond a certain extent. He heard the blood singing in his veins. It sometimes seemed so loud that he fancied it prevented his hearing properly, certain other sounds that were beginning very faintly to make themselves audible in the depths of the house. Every time he fastened his attention on these sounds they instantly ceased. They certainly came no nearer. Yet he could not rid himself of the idea that movement was going on somewhere in the lower regions of the house. The drawing room floor where the doors had been so strangely closed seemed too near. The sounds were further off than that. He thought of the great kitchen with the scurrying black beetles and of the dismal little scullery. But somehow or other they did not seem to come from there either. Surely they were not outside the house? Then suddenly the truth flashed into his mind and for the space of a minute he felt as if his blood had stopped flowing and turned to ice. The sounds were not downstairs at all. They were upstairs, upstairs somewhere among those horrid gloomy little servants rooms with their bits of broken furniture, low ceilings and cramped windows. Upstairs where the victim had first been disturbed and stalked to her death. And the moment he discovered where the sounds were he began to hear them more clearly. It was the sound of feet moving stealthily along the passage overhead in and out among the rooms and past the furniture. He turned quickly to steal a glance at the motionless figure seated beside him to note whether she had shared his discovery. The faint candlelight coming through the crack in the cupboard door threw her strongly marked face into vivid relief against the white of the wall. But it was something else that made him catch his breath and stare again. An extraordinary something had come into her face and seemed to spread over her features like a mask. It smoothed out the deep lines and drew the skin everywhere a little tighter so that the wrinkles disappeared. It brought into the face with the sole exception of the old eyes and appearance of youth and almost of childhood. He stared in speechless amazement, amazement that was dangerously near to horror. It was his aunt's face indeed but it was her face of 40 years ago, the vacant innocent face of a girl. He had heard stories of that strange effect of terror which could wipe a human countenance clean of other emotions obliterating all previous expressions but he had never realized that it could be literally true or could mean anything so simply horrible as what he now saw. For the dreadful signature of over-mastering fear was written plainly in that utter vacancy of the girlish face beside him and when feeling his intense gaze, she turned to look at him, he instinctively closed his eyes tightly to shut out the sight. Yet when he turned a minute later, his feelings well in hand, he sought his intense relief another expression. His aunt was smiling and though the face was deathly white, the awful veil had lifted and the normal look was returning. Anything wrong was all he could think of to say at the moment and the answer was eloquent coming from such a woman. I feel cold and a little frightened, she whispered. He offered to close the window but she seized hold of him and begged him not to leave her side even for an instant. It's upstairs, I know, she whispered with an odd half-laugh. But I can't possibly go up. But Shorthouse thought otherwise knowing that in action lay their best hope of self-control. He took the brandy flask and poured out a glass of neat spirit, stiff enough to help anybody over anything. She swallowed it with a little shiver. His only idea now was to get out of the house before her collapse became inevitable. But this could not safely be done by turning tail and running from the enemy. In action was no longer possible. Every minute he was growing less master of himself and desperate, aggressive measures were imperative without further delay. Moreover, the action must be taken towards the enemy not away from it. The climax, if necessary and unavoidable would have to be faced boldly. He could do it now but in 10 minutes he might not have the force left to act for himself, much less for both. Upstairs the sounds were meanwhile becoming louder and closer accompanied by occasional creaking of the boards. Someone was moving stealthily about, stumbling now and then awkwardly against the furniture. Waiting a few moments to allow the tremendous dose of spirits to produce its effect and knowing this would last but a short time under the circumstances, short house then quietly got on his feet saying in a determined voice, now Anjulia will go upstairs and find out what all this noise is about. You must come too, it's what we agreed. He picked up his stick and went to the cupboard for the candle. A limp form rose shakily beside him breathing hard and he heard a voice say very faintly something about being ready to come. The woman's courage amazed him. It was so much greater than his own and as they advanced holding aloft the dripping candle some subtle force exhaled from this trembling white-faced old woman at his side that was the true source of his inspiration. It held something really great that shamed him and gave him the support without which he would have proved far less equal to the occasion. They crossed the dark landing avoiding with their eyes the deep black space over the banisters. Then they began to mount the narrow staircase to meet the sounds which minute by minute grew louder and nearer. About halfway up the stairs Anjulia stumbled and short house turned to catch her by the arm and just at that moment there came a terrific crash in the servants corridor overhead. It was instantly followed by a shrill agonized scream that was a cry of terror and a cry for help melted into one. Before they could move aside or go down a single step someone came rushing along the passage overhead blundering horribly, racing madly at full speed three steps at a time down the very staircase where they stood the steps were light and uncertain but close behind them sounded the heavier tread of another person and the staircase seemed to shake. Short house and his companion just had time to flatten themselves against the wall when the jumble of flying steps was upon them and two persons with the slightest possible interval between them dashed past at full speed. It was a perfect whirlwind of sound breaking in upon the midnight silence of the empty building. The two runners pursuer and pursued had passed clean through them where they stood and already with a thud the boards below had received first one then the other yet they had seen absolutely nothing not a hand or arm or face or even a shred of flying clothing. There came a second pause then the first one the lighter of the two obviously the pursued one ran with uncertain footsteps into the little room with short house and his aunt had just left. The heavier one followed. There was a sound of scuffling gasping and smothered screaming and then out onto the landing came the step of a single person treading waitly. A dead silence followed for the space of half a minute and then was heard a rushing sound through the air. It was followed by a dull crashing thud in the depths of the house below on the stone floor of the hall. Utter silence reigned after. Nothing moved. The flame of the candle was steady. It had been steady the whole time and the air had been undisturbed by any movement whatsoever. Pulsed with terror and Julia without waiting for her companion began fumbling her way downstairs. She was crying gently to herself and when short house put his arm round her and half carried her he felt that she was trembling like a leaf. He went into the little room and picked up the cloak from the floor and arm in arm walking very slowly without speaking a word or looking once behind them they marched down the three flights into the hall. In the hall they saw nothing but the hallway down the stairs they were conscious that someone followed them step by step. When they went faster it was left behind and when they went more slowly it caught them up but never once did they look behind to see and at each turning of the staircase they lowered their eyes for fear of the following horror they might see upon the stairs above. With trembling hands short house opened the front door and they walked out into the moonlight and drew a deep breath of the cool night air blowing in from the sea. And