"How provoking!" said she. "Three yards more would finish, and now I shall
have to go down to the village and buy a whole skein, just for that."

"No," said Miss Sophonisba, who would not have acknowledged to herself her
dread of being alone in the house, "I think there's some like that in the
chimney cupboard in the south room: I'll get it."

She put down her work, and taking a candle went into the south room.
Placing the light on a chair, she opened the cupboard door and began
searching for the thread among a variety of miscellaneous matters. Some
slight noise startled her. She turned, and saw standing before the
fireplace an elderly gentleman, whose face was, as she thought, familiar,
though she could not recall at the moment where she had seen it. It did
not occur to her that her companion was not a living man, and she stood
for a moment with a look of surprised inquiry, expecting him to speak. The
eyes met hers in a fixed stare, like that of a corpse. She had not seen
the figure move, yet the same instant it was at her side. It, was too
much, even for her. She turned and sprang through the open door into the
passage, but not before it had flashed across her mind that the dead face
bore a horrible resemblance to the old doctor. The Thing did not follow
her, and she stood still in the passage, not daring to alarm her more
timid sister, and yet dreading inexpressibly to re-enter the haunted room.
Her terror was not merely the oppression, the natural fear of the unknown,
the sense of a nature differing from her own, which she had experienced
the past night: it was all this, together with a sense of an evil
influence, a feeling of loathing and horror, that made her sick in soul
and in body. However strong her resolution, Miss Sophonisba felt that she
could never endure, much less question, this frightful Presence. The
candle was yet burning on the chair where she had left it, and, summoning