e and at the sound of his voice she half arose,
but recognizing Peter she sank back in her chair.

Peter repeated his question, but she shook her head.

"Won't you tell us? What was it you saw? A man----?"

Her eyes sought Beth's and a look of tenderness came into them,
banishing the vision. But she lied when she answered Peter's question.

"I saw nothin', Mr. Nichols--I think I'll go up----"

She took another swallow of the water and rose. And with her strength
came a greater obduracy.

"I saw nothin'----" she repeated again, as she saw that he was still
looking at her. "Nothin' at all."

Peter and Beth exchanged glances and Beth, putting her hand under the
housekeeper's arm, helped the woman to the back stairs.

Peter stood for a moment in the middle of the kitchen floor, his gaze on
the door through which the woman had vanished. Aunt Tillie too! She had
seen some one, some Thing--the same some one or Thing that McGuire had
seen. But granting that their eyes had not deceived them, granting that
each had seen Something, what, unless it were supernatural, could have
frightened McGuire and Aunt Tillie too? Even if the old woman had been
timid about staying in the house, she had made it clear to Peter that
she was entirely unaware of the kind of danger that threatened her
employer. Peter had believed her then. He saw no reason to disbelieve
her now. She had known as little as Peter about the cause for McGuire's
alarm. And here he had found her staring with the same unseeing eyes
into the darkness, with the same symptoms of nervous shock as McGuire
had shown. What enemy of McGuire's could frighten Aunt Tillie into
prostration and seal her lips to speech? Why wouldn't she have dared to
tell Peter what she had seen? What was this secret and how could she
share it with McGuire when twenty-four hours ago she had been in
complete ignorance of the mystery? Why wouldn't she talk? Was the
vision too intimate? Or too horrible?

Peter was imaginative, for he had been steeped from boyhood in the
superstitions of his people. But the war had taught him that devils had
legs and carried weapons. He had seen more horrible sights than most men
of his years, in daylight, at dawn, or silvered with moonlight. He
thought he had exhausted the possibilities for terror. But he found
himself grudgingly admitting that he was at the least a little
nervous--at the most, on the verge of alarm. But he put his whistle in
his mouth, drew his re