"Yes, sir," whimpered the boy, cringing under the sharp tone and starting back for the stairs. But, before he reached the lowest step, he halted. Peter Grimm stood barring his way. For a moment the Dead Man and the child stood face to face. Then, still frightened but unable to resist, Willem turned back toward Frederik, who had just picked up the photograph once more; to put it in the smouldering ashes.
"Mynheer Frederik," asked the boy in a voice not his own, "where is Anne Marie?"
"What?" barked Frederik with an uncontrollable start and whipping the photograph around behind his back like a guilty child caught in theft. "What's that? Anne Marie? Why do you ask me about her? How should I know?"
He turned his back on the boy and began to tear the photograph into tiny bits. Willem hesitated, then went back to the stairway. Again at the foot of the steps he confronted the Dead Man. Again they stood for an instant, looking wordlessly into each other's eyes. And again Willem turned back into the room.
"Mynheer Frederik," he asked in a sort of dazed bewilderment, "where is Mynheer Grimm?"
"Eh? Mynheer Grimm? Dead, of course. Dead."
"Are—are you sure? Because just now——"
"Oh, go to bed! At once, do you hear! Go, or I'll have you punished!"
Under this dire threat and the scowl that went with it, not even the Dead Man's power could stem Willem's defeat. Up the stairs he scuttled. At the door of his room, the fever thirst in his hot, parched throat for the moment overcame fear.
"Could—could I have a drink of water?" he whimpered, gazing longingly down at the full ice-water pitcher on the sideboard.