And yet she advanced with a decision, and a firmness, and also a rapidity, which was unlike anything she hitherto had shown. On the threshold of the room she stopped, starting back, and throwing out her hands in front of her. "It's our bedroom, Tom--it's full of ghosts! Ghosts! Ghosts! Don't make me go into the bedroom, Tom." But the propelling force, whatever it might have been, was beyond her power to withstand. She gave a sudden, exceeding bitter cry. Turning the handle, she flung the door right back upon its hinges. With a peal of laughter, which grated on the ears of those who heard almost more than anything which had gone before, she staggered into the room. As she disappeared they stopped, listening, with faces which had suddenly grown whiter, to her strange merriment. "This is our bedroom--ha! ha! ha!--where you brought me when we were first married! Why, Tom, how many years is it since I was here? Ha, ha, ha!--I never thought I should come back to our bedroom, Tom--never! Ha, ha, ha!" All at once there was a change in her tone--a note of terror. The laughter fled with the dreadful suddenness with which it had come. "Don't, Tom, Don't! Have mercy--mercy! I'll do as you wish me--you know I will; I'll--get your money. Only--I didn't know--you kept it--in our bedroom--Tom. You didn't use to." So soon as the laughter, fading, was exchanged for that panic cry, Madge hurried after her into the room--the others, as ever, hard upon her heels. The woman stood in the centre of the floor, looking about her with glances of evident bewilderment, as if seeking for something she had been told to look for. She searched in vain. Her eagerness was pitiful. She looked hither and thither, in every direction, as if, urged to the search, she feared, in speechless agony, the penalties of disobedience. All the while she kept giving short, sharp cries of strained and frenzied fear. "I'm looking! I'm looking, Tom, as hard as I can, but--I see nothing--nothing, Tom! I'm doing as you tell me--I am--I am--I am! Oh, Tom, I am! But I don't see your money--I don't! I don't! If you'll show me where it is, I'll get it; but I see nothing of your money, Tom! Where is it?--Here!" She moved towards the wash-hand stand, which was at the side of the room. "Behind the washstand?" She lifted the piece of furniture on one side with a degree of strength of which, light though it was, one would not have thought that she was capable. Getting behind it, she placed against the wall her eager, trembling hand. "But--your money isn't here. There's nothing but the wall. Take the paper off the wall? But--how am I to do it?--With my fingers!--I can't tear off with my fingers, Tom. Oh, Tom, I'll try! Don't speak to me like that--I'll try!" With feverish haste she dragged the apologies for gloves off her quivering hands. "Where shall I tear it off?--Here? Yes, Tom, I'll try to tear it off just here."