I was up and downstairs before Maggie the next morning. The patches
showed trampling. In the doorway they were almost obliterated, as
by the trailing of a garment over them, but by the fireplace there
were two prints quite distinct. I knew when I saw them that I had
expected the marks of Miss Emily's tiny foot, although I had not
admitted it before. But these were not Miss Emily's. They were
large, flat, substantial, and one showed a curious marking around
the edge that--It was my own! The marking was the knitted side of
my bedroom slipper. I had, so far as I could tell, gone downstairs,
in the night, investigated the candles, possibly in darkness, and
gone back to bed again.

The effect of the discovery on me was--well undermining. In all
the uneasiness of the past few weeks I had at least had full
confidence in myself. And now that was gone. I began to wonder
how much of the things that had troubled me were real, and how many
I had made for myself.

To tell the truth, by that time the tension was almost unbearable.
My nerves were going, and there was no reason for it. I kept telling
myself that. In the mirror I looked white and anxious, and I had a
sense of approaching trouble. I caught Maggie watching me, too, and
on the seventh I find in my journal the words: "Insanity is often
only a formless terror."

On the Sunday morning following that I found three burnt matches in
the library fireplace, and one of the candles in the brass holders
was almost gone. I sat most of the day in that room, wondering what
would happen to me if I lost my mind. I knew that Maggie was