“No more than that?” I asked, testing her.
“No more at first. Afterward—if it brings me what it ought to, I will give you whatever you think it is worth. Does that satisfy you? Are you willing to risk an encounter with the ghost, for just ten dollars and a promise?”
The smile with which she said this was indescribable. I think it gave me a more thrilling consciousness of human terror in face of the supernatural than anything which I had yet heard in this connection. Surely her motive for remaining in the haunted house had been extraordinarily strong.
“You are afraid,” she declared. “You will shrink, when the time comes, from going into that cellar at night.”
I shook my head; I had already regained both my will-power and the resolution to carry out this adventure to the end.
“I will go,” said I.
“And get me my box?”
“Yes!”
“And bring it to me here as early the next day as you can leave Mrs. Packard?”
“Yes.”