"It must be due to something in the room," Mrs. Brigham said faintly.
"It is not due to anything in the room," said Rebecca again with the
shrill insistency of terror.
"How you act, Rebecca Glynn," said Caroline.
Henry Glynn stood and stared a moment longer. His face showed a gamut
of emotions--horror, conviction, then furious incredulity. Suddenly he
began hastening hither and thither about the room. He moved the
furniture with fierce jerks, turning ever to see the effect upon the
shadow on the wall. Not a line of its terrible outlines wavered.
"It must be something in the room!" he declared in a voice which seemed
to snap like a lash.
His face changed. The inmost secrecy of his nature seemed evident
until one almost lost sight of his lineaments. Rebecca stood close to
her sofa, regarding him with woeful, fascinated eyes. Mrs. Brigham
clutched Caroline's hand. They both stood in a corner out of his way.
For a few moments he raged about the room like a caged wild animal. He
moved every piece of furniture; when the moving of a piece did not
affect the shadow, he flung it to the floor, the sisters watching.
Then suddenly he desisted. He laughed and began straightening the
furniture which he had flung down.
"What an absurdity," he said easily. "Such a to-do about a shadow."
"That's so," assented Mrs. Brigham, in a scared voice which she tried
to make natural. As she spoke she lifted a chair near her.
"I think you have broken the chair that Edward was so fond of," said
Caroline.
Terror and wrath were struggling for expression on her face. Her mouth
was set, her eyes shrinking. Henry lifted the chair with a show of
anxiety.
"Just as good as ever," he said pleasantly. He laughed again, looking
at his sisters. "Did I scare you?" he said. "I should think you might
be used to me by this time. You know my way of wanting to leap to the
bottom of a mystery, and that shadow does look--queer, like--and I
thought if there was any way of accounting for it I would like to
without any delay."--"You don't seem to have succeeded," remarked
Caroline dryly, with a slight glance at the wall.
Henry's eyes followed hers and he quivered perceptibly.
"Oh, there is no accounting for shadows," he said, and he laughed
again. "A man is a fool to try to account for shadows."
Then the supper bell rang, and they all left the room, but Henry kept
his back to the wall, as did, indeed, the others.
Mrs. Brigham pressed close to Caroline as she crossed the hall. "He
looked like a demon!" she breathed in her ear.
Henry led the way with an alert motion like a boy; Rebecca brought up
the rear; she could scarcely walk, her knees trembled so.
"I can't sit in that room again this evening," she whispered to
Caroline after supper.
"Very well, we will sit in the south room," replied Caroline. "I think
we will sit in the south parlour," she said aloud; "it isn't as damp as
the study, and I have a cold."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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