d she spoke.

"Step to the door and call my daughter. I am Mrs. Drainger."

I might have been the servant. I arose and groped my way toward the
door. She neither offered me any direction as to its location, nor
commented upon the gloom in which I hesitated.

I reached the door and, opening it, was about to call, when I was aware
of Miss Drainger's presence; she seemed to have materialized, a pale
specter, out of the dusk, and I was again conscious of vague malice.

"Your mother wished me to call you," I said, holding the door open.

Her strange eyes searched mine for a brief moment as she entered the
room.

Suddenly Miss Drainger, poised in the gloom over her mother's chair,
seemed to my startled sense like a monstrous pallid moth. The
impression, though momentary, was none the less vivid. I felt choked,
uncomfortable. An instant only, and Mrs. Drainger's voice recalled me to
my senses.

She gave directions for the bringing of a box containing some documents
she wished. Miss Drainger said nothing, but turned abruptly, gave me
another sidelong glance and left the room.

In the time she was absent neither of us spoke. The strange woman in the
corner shrank, it seemed to me, deeper into the dusk, until only her
extraordinary hands remained; and I sat in my uncomfortable and ancient
chair, the little streaks of sunlight from the blind making odd patterns
on my legs and hands.

The return of the daughter with a tin box which she placed in my hands
was followed by an extraordinary moment. I became, if I did not deceive
myself, increasingly conscious of a silent struggle going on between the
two. Mrs. Drainger, in her biting, inflexible voice, again requested her
daughter to leave us. Emily demurred and in the interval that followed I
had a sense of crisis. Nay, I fancied more; upon hearing Emily's brief
protest Mrs. Drainger slowly clenched her hands, and the movement was as
though she were steadily bending her daughter's will to her purpose. At
length, with the same sibilant in-taking of the breath I had observed
before, Emily turned and swept through the door, her face unusually
yellow, the little spots of rouge on her cheeks burning suddenly.

The box she had given me contained a will made by Mrs. Drainger,
together with a few securities totaling no great value, and other less
important documents. This will she now directed me to modify so that
the inheritance of the property upon her death would be conditional