The third night came. She did not give her secret to the boarders; she was not afraid of the heat of an argument or the scorch of a fight, but the thought of ridicule's cold smile made her shudder. She hated education, and was afraid of its nimble trickery. There was more of insult in a word which she did not understand than in a term familiarly abusive. But she told Milford. He was under obligations, and dared not scoff. She requested him to sit upon the veranda, to wait for her coming from the spirit's presence chamber. She drove the Dutch girl to bed, not in the house, but in an outlying cottage. In the dining-room she whispered to Milford, ready to turn him out upon the veranda. The clock's internals growled the five-minute verge of twelve. She turned Milford out, and hastened into Lewson's room. She sat down in a rocking chair, her nervous hands fidgeting in her lap. Spirits keep their promises best in the dark, and she had not lighted a lamp. Moonbeams fell through the window, a ladder of light, upon which a spirit might well descend to earth. The clock in the dining-room struck twelve. The dog howled under the apple tree. "Lewson, are you here?" Two eggs on a shelf caught the light of the moon. She started. Surely, they were not there a moment ago. Was the old man robbing hens' nests in the spiritual world? A breeze stirred, and there was a whisper of drapery at the window. "Lewson, is that you?" She glanced again at the eggs. Hadn't they moved? A midnight cock crew, and she started. Why should he crow just as she glanced at the eggs? She waited. "Lewson, oh, Lewson! Do you hear me? Don't you remember your promise? Come, now, don't treat me this way. You know how hard it was for me to believe in your doctrine. You know how I've tried to have some sort of religion. And now, please don't knock down all the props. Haven't I been kind to you? Didn't I take you when nobody else would? Then help me, Lewson. Give me something to cling to. Just say one word--just one--somethin' to let me know you have told the truth. I want the truth, that's all I want, Lewson. You haven't come. No, you haven't, and you needn't say you have. You can't come, and you know it. Well, I'm goin' now. Are you comin'? No, you ain't. You are an old fraud, that's what you are." She flounced out upon the veranda, and said to Milford: "Go to bed. There never was a bigger liar than that old fool." CHAPTER V. NEEDED HIS SPIRITUAL HELP. Early the next morning, before the clanging bell had shattered the boarder's dream, the old woman hastened to Milford's cottage. When she surprised him at breakfast, he thought that possibly the old man might have called at some time during the night, and that she had come to bring the good news, but this early hope was killed by the darkness of her brow. "I've come over to tell you that if ever you say a word about what happened last night, I'll drive you out of the county," she said, her lips parted and her teeth sharp-set.