"Good heaven, Anne, you don't have to live in the house, so why do it? It's like a tomb. I get the shivers every time I think about it. You can afford to live anywhere you like. It isn't as if you were obliged to think of expenses—"
"It seems rather silly not to live in it," she countered. "I will admit that at first I couldn't endure the thought of it, but that was when all of the horrors were fresh in my mind. Besides, I resented his leaving it to me. It was not in the bargain, you know. There was something high-handed, too, in the way I was ordered to live in the house. I had the uncanny feeling that he was trying to keep me where he could watch—but, of course, that was nonsense. There is no reason why I shouldn't live in the house, Georgie. It is—"
"There is a blamed good reason why you should never have lived in it," he blurted out. "There's no use digging it up, however, so we'll let it stay buried." He argued bitterly, even doggedly, but finally gave it up. "Well," he said in the end, "if you will, you will. All the King's horses and all the King's men can't stop you when you've once made up your mind."
A few days later she called for Lutie in the automobile and they went together to the grim old house near Washington Square. Her mind was made up, as George had put it. She was going to open the house and have it put in order for occupancy as soon as possible.
She had solved the meaning of Braden's postscript. She would have to prove to him, first of all, that she was not afraid of the shadow that lay inside the walls of that grim old house. "If you are not also a coward you will return to my grandfather's house, where you belong." It was, she honestly believed, his way of telling her that if she faced the shadow in her own house, and put it safely behind her, her fortitude would not go unrewarded!
It did not occur to her that she was beginning badly when she delayed going down to the house for two whole days because Lutie was unable to accompany her.
The windows and doors were boarded up. There was no sign of life about the place when they got down from the limousine and mounted the steps at the heels of the footman who had run on ahead to ring the bell. They waited for the opening of the inner door and the shooting of the bolts in the storm-doors, but no sound came to their ears. Again the bell jangled,—how well she remembered the old-fashioned bell at the end of the hall!—and still no response from within.
The two women looked at each other oddly. "Try the basement door," said Anne to the man. They stood at the top of the steps while the footman tried the iron gate that barred the way to the tradesmen's door. It was pad-locked.
"I asked Simmy to meet us here at eleven," said Anne nervously. "I expect it will cost a good deal to do the house over as I want—Doesn't any one answer, Peters?"
"No, ma'am. Maybe he's out."