I hesitated--"of fear. When you have really seen or heard
something, it will be time enough to be nervous."

"Humph!" said Maggie on one of these occasions, and edged into the
room. It was growing dusk. "It will be too late then, Miss Agnes.
And another thing. You're a brave woman. I don't know as I've
seen a braver. But I notice you keep away from the telephone after
dark."

The general outcome of these conversations was that, to avoid
argument, I permitted the preparation of my room for the night at
an earlier and yet earlier hour, until at last it was done the
moment I was dressed for dinner.

It is clear to me now that two entirely different sorts of fear
actuated us. For by that time I had to acknowledge that there was
fear in the house. Even Delia, the cook, had absorbed some of
Maggie's terror; possibly traceable to some early impressions of
death which connected them-selves with a four-post bedstead.

Of the two sorts of fear, Delia's and Maggie's symptoms were
subjective. Mine, I still feel, were objective.

It was not long before the beginning of August, and during a lull
in the telephone matter, that I began to suspect that the house
was being visited at night.

There was nothing I could point to with any certainty as having been
disturbed at first. It was a matter of a book misplaced on the
table, of my sewing-basket open when I always leave it closed, of a