e she trusted herself to it. When she reached
the broad porch, her footsteps echoed strangely upon the floor. Each
slight sound was caught up and repeated until it sounded like the tread
of a marching army, vanishing into the distance.

[Sidenote: The Desolate House]

The heavy door creaked on its hinges when she opened it. That sound,
too, echoed and re-echoed in rhythmic pulsations that beat painfully
upon her ears, but, after she was once inside, all the clamour ceased.

She could see clearly now, though it was still dark. A long, wide
stairway wound up from the hall, and there were two great rooms upon
either side. She turned into the wide doorway at the right.

Windows, grey with cobwebs, stretched from floor to ceiling, but very
little light came through them. The wall paper, of indistinguishable
pattern, was partially torn from the walls and the hanging portions
swayed in the same current of air that waved the cobwebs. There was no
furniture of any description in the room, except the heavy, gilt-framed
mirror over the mantel. It was cracked and much of the gilt frame had
fallen away. She went into the next room, then into the one beyond that,
which seemed to stretch across the back of the house, and so through the
door at the left of the room into the two on the other side of the
house, at the left of the hall.

In the centre of the largest room was a small table, upon which rested
a small object covered with a dome-shaped glass shade, precisely like
that which covered the basket of wax flowers in Grandmother's parlour.
Rosemary went to it with keen interest and leaned over the table to peer
in.

[Sidenote: The Broken Heart]

At first she could see nothing, for the glass was cloudy. She noted,
with a pang of disgust, that the table-cover was made of brown alpaca,
fringed all around by the fabric itself, cut unskilfully into shreds
with the scissors. As she looked, the glass slowly cleared.

The small object was heart-shaped and made of wax in some dull colour
half-way between red and brown. At length she saw that it was broken and
the pieces had been laid together, carefully. Unless she had looked very
closely she would not have seen that it was broken.

Suddenly she felt a Presence in the room, and looked up quickly, with
terror clutching at her inmost soul. A tall, grey figure, mysteriously
shrouded, stood motionless beside her. Only the eyes were unveiled and
visible amid the misty folds of the fabri