Hester brought two more small hand lamps, and after another trip to the kitchen brought six candles and six battered but usable candlesticks. A candle was given to each of the four women, and Norma politely selected the oldest and most broken holder. "Land sake!" exclaimed Stebbins, coming in, "you goin' to use _that_ candlestick? That's the very one the murderin' woman used!" With a scream, Norma dropped it and no one moved to pick it up. "Get out, Stebbins!" roared Landon, "you queer the whole business." "I'll take this one," and Mr. Bruce picked up the old brass affair; "I'm not afraid of such things. Here, Miss Cameron, take mine, it's new and commonplace, I assure you." White-faced and trembling, Norma took the cheap crockery thing, and shortly they all followed Hester up the stairs to the shadows of the floor above. The place was silent as the grave. Hester's slippered feet made no sound, and a voluntary scraping of Tracy's shoes stopped as soon as he realized its enormous sound in those empty halls. A multitude of doors led to rooms in all directions, there seemed to be no plan or symmetry of any sort. The candle flames flickered, the small lamps burned with a pale sickly light. Hester paused midway of the main corridor. "What rooms you want?" she asked, uninterestedly. "Give me a cheerful one," wailed Milly. "Oh, Wynne, let us take a little, cozy one." "Of course you shall," said Braye, kindly. "Hester, which is the pleasantest room in the house? Give that to Mr. and Mrs. Landon! And then we'll put all you girls near them. The rest of us will camp anywhere." "Let's all pretty much camp anywhere till to-morrow," suggested the Professor. "I'd like to select my room by daylight." "I've made up some of the rooms, and some I ain't," volunteered Hester. "Then, for Heaven's sake, show us the made-up rooms, and get out!" burst forth Landon. "I wish we'd brought our maids, Milly; that woman affects me like fever and ague." But after a time they were assigned to various more or less inhabitable bedrooms, and as quickly as possible, all reappeared in the great hall below, ready for supper. The dining room, toward the back of the house, was not half bad, after all the available lights had been commandeered for the table. "You knew there were no electrics," said Braye to Eve, who was bewailing the fact. "Of course I did, and I thought candles would be lovely and picturesque and all that; and kerosene gives a good soft light, but--well, somehow,--do you know what I thought as we came through that dreadful wood?" "What?" "Only one sentence rang through my mind,--and that was,--The Powers of Darkness!" "That isn't a sentence," objected the Professor, a little querulously, and everybody laughed. Also, everybody blessed the occasion for laughter. But Eve went on. "I don't care if it's a sentence or a syllogism, or what it is! It just rang in my ears. And I tell you this whole place is under the Powers of Darkness----"