Behind, where it had been, was a blank, brown-stained cobwebbed wall, thrown up harsh and sudden against them, making the room small, and all the enchanted chamber, with its red slanting carpet, and its far reflected corners, gone.
The house hushed up again after that terrible noise, and stood just the same as ever. When a thing like that happens, it tells its own story, just once, and then it is over. People are different. They keep talking.
There was Grashy to come home. She had not got there in time to hear the house tell it. She must learn it from the children. Why?
"Because they knew," Luclarion said. "Because, then, they could not wait and let it be found out."
"We never touched it," said Mark.
"We jumped," said Luke.
"We couldn't help it, if that did it. S'posin' we'd jumped in the kitchen, or—the—flat-irons had tumbled down,—or anything? That old string was all wore out."
"Well, we was here, and we jumped; and we know."
"We was here, of course; and of course we couldn't help knowing, with all that slam-bang. Why, it almost upset Lake Ontario! We can tell how it slammed, and how we thought the house was coming down. I did."
"And how we were in the best parlor, and how we jumped," reiterated Luclarion, slowly. "Marcus, it's a stump!"