Katy, opening the door softly, so as not to rouse Cassie if she slept, found the kitchen as she had left it, dark and silent and warm. She did not stop to take off the scarlet shawl which she had worn when she went to satisfy herself that her hoard was still in the putlock hole, but climbed at once the steep, narrow stairway which led to the rooms above. Her body ached for rest, but there was still bread to be set and the fire to be fixed for the night. There awaited Katy, also, a more difficult experience than these. Upstairs, also, all was dark and quiet. Katy tiptoed across the hall to look in upon the invalid. With hands resting on the sides of the door, she peered in. She could see the outlines of the bureau and the narrow bed; she thought that she heard the even, regular breathing of the sleeper, and she was about to turn and go down the steps. Then a startling suspicion halted her. The bedcovers seemed to hang straight and even to the floor, the pillows to stand stiffly against the headboard; there was, after all, it seemed suddenly to Katy, no sound of breathing. For an instant she clung to the door frame, her back to the room, then she turned slowly and compelled herself to take the few short steps to the bed. There she felt about with her hands. The covers were smooth; instead of the hand or cheek of Cassie Hartman, she touched the starched ruffles of a fresh pillowcase. "Cassie!" cried Katy in wild alarm. There was no answer. Striving to make her voice sound louder, but only succeeding in uttering a fainter whisper, Katy cried again. "Cassie! Where are you?" Still there was no answer. Frantically Katy fumbled about for a match. The room was in order, a smooth towel covered the bureau, the bed was freshly made as though for a stranger. Katy stared stupidly about her until the match burned her fingers and she was left in the darkness which seemed to close in upon her and smother her. The great house with its tremendous length and breadth, its many rooms, their blackness, the dark closets in the eaves into which one could accidentally shut one's self and die--the great house took shape about her, dim, mysterious, terrible. Strange forms seemed to be here in the room crowding upon her. Though she was aware that it threatened her, and though she tried desperately not to yield it entrance to her consciousness, the horrible recollection of John Hartman's face as he sat in his buggy on the mountain road, of the still whiteness of the faces of her own dead, crept slowly upon her. Must she go through this house searching for her mistress? She dared not go for aid, when Cassie might be lying in some corner helpless or dying. Cassie could scarcely get out of her bed alone. Where had she gone? Who had made up this bed? Then, in time to save her reason, Katy heard a faint voice addressing her from a distant corner of the great house. "Katy!" Katy moved slowly along the dark hall. "Ach, where are you?" "Here," answered the faint voice.