something--but there was nothing there. And out on the
side porch Mynie would be sitting, her head thrown back against the
wooden column of the porch, her hands clasped about her knees, smiling,
smiling, always smiling. Sometimes she would hum a sort of low
tuneless chant--it sounded like a pagan ritual of some sort, all
repetitions, rising and falling in a monotonous, haunting drone. And
once, as I stood watching her curiously, the word for that noise
flashed suddenly into my mind--incantation. That was it, incantation.

"Well! All this sounds very feeble, doesn't it? The truth is, I
haven't got the right vocabulary--as a matter of fact, I don't think
anybody has. When you can describe a thing, a sensation, perfectly, I
doubt if it's very important anyhow. It's always so. The big things
simply elude description. And yet we all know them. Falling in love,
for instance: God knows it's as definite as measles, but who ever
described it? The most these writing fellows can manage is to tell you
what a lot of people did who happened to be in that way, and sometimes
they catch a lot of the tricks, but that's all. Then there's dying.
There's a specific atmosphere about that--everybody knows it. The
people know it mostly, themselves. I mean, if any one ever had
occasion to die twice, he'd recognise the symptoms immediately. But
nobody can describe it, though plenty of us know what it is.

"So with that house and the atmosphere in it. Something was happening
there. Something so strong and so actual that it defied all
appearances, all the ordinary influences that might be supposed to act
on the imagination of, say, a sensitive, hysterical, under-occupied
woman. For as a matter of fact there was nothing morbid in the look of
the house--nothing at all. It was sunny and fresh and painted. It was
clean and dry. But it ought not to have been. No ... I've sat there,
late afternoons, when it seemed to me if I touched the walls they'd be
damp and the woodwork rotted and mouldy. The boards should have
creaked there and the stair-rails ought to have given under the
hand--but they didn't. I had them all repaired, you see! But there
were a few things I hadn't had the chance to repair and they ... oh,
well, they were there, that was all.

"There? You'd have said so, any of you, if you'd seen Althea as I saw
her one morning. I stepped into the kitchen suddenly, to give an order
for some beef-tea I wanted to take aw