whiteness, and their complexions were always waxen and unreal. And there
was that profoundly strange feed-box, imperturbable with its burden of
fantastic mystery.

Suddenly from down near her feet the girl heard a crunching sound, a
sort of a nibbling, as if some silent and very discreet terrier was at
work upon the turf. She faltered back; here was no doubt another
grotesque detail of this most unnatural episode. She did not run,
because physically she was in the power of these events. Her feet
chained her to the ground in submission to this march of terror after
terror. As she stared at the spot from which this sound seemed to come,
there floated through her mind a vague, sweet vision--a vision of her
safe little room, in which at this hour she usually was sleeping.

The scratching continued faintly and with frequent pauses, as if the
terrier was then listening. When the girl first removed her eyes from
the knot-hole the scene appeared of one velvet blackness; then gradually
objects loomed with a dim lustre. She could see now where the tops of
the trees joined the sky and the form of the barn was before her dyed in
heavy purple. She was ever about to shriek, but no sound came from her
constricted throat. She gazed at the ground with the expression of
countenance of one who watches the sinister-moving grass where a serpent
approaches.

Dimly she saw a piece of sod wrenched free and drawn under the great
foundation-beam of the barn. Once she imagined that she saw human hands,
not outlined at all, but sufficient, in colour, form, or movement to
make subtle suggestion.

Then suddenly a thought that illuminated the entire situation flashed