"I wish to see your mother," I said.
She hesitated. At length, opening the door scarcely enough to admit me, she bade me enter, and disappeared. The house was as dismal as ever.
"Come in here," she said, appearing after her usual sudden fashion in a dim doorway and looking more like a wraith than ever.
Her eyes burned me as I walked cautiously into the other room.
It was one I had not seen, but Mrs. Drainger was seated, as before, in the obscurest corner, a blur of white in which her pale hands looked like pallid lumps of flame. I faced my invisible client.
"I have come about the will," I began, and was immediately conscious of Miss Emily's voracious interest. The opening was, as I recognized too late, scarcely diplomatic.
"Will?" said the daughter in a harsh voice. "You are making a will? You—you——"
She looked enormously tall and unpleasant as she spoke.
"Yes, my dear," responded Mrs. Drainger dryly.
"You? You?" continued the daughter rapidly. "After all these years? It is incredible. It is incredible." She laughed unpleasantly with closed eyes.