“Why has nobody lived here for two years, then? They tell me that for five years every family moved out after being here just a short time. The whole atmosphere of the house is ghastly. And I can’t forget how the older Berkheim girl was found stabbed to death in her bed, and nobody ever knew how it happened. Why, she may have been murdered in this very room!”
“Go to sleep and don’t scare yourself with such silly talk. Mother will be with us tomorrow night, and Dad will be back next day. Now go to sleep.”
The elder sister soon dropped into slumber, but the younger lay open-eyed, staring into the black room and shuddering at every stifled scream of the wind or distant growl of thunder. She began to count, hoping to hypnotize herself into drowsiness, but at every slight noise she started, and lost her count.
Suddenly she turned and shook her sister by the shoulder.
“Edith, somebody is prowling around downstairs!” she whispered. “Listen! Oh, what shall we do?”
The elder sister struck a match and lit the candle. Then she slipped on her dressing-gown, and drew on her slippers.
“You’re not going down there? Edith, tell me you’re not going downstairs! It might be that murdered Berkheim girl! Edith, don’t—”
Edith shot a glance of withering scorn at her sister, who lay on the bed with blanched face and wide, terrified eyes.
“There is something moving around downstairs, and I’m going to find out what it is,” she said.
Taking the candle, she left the room. Her younger sister lay in the darkness, listening to the pattering of rain on the roof and straining her ears to catch the slightest sound. The noise downstairs ceased, but the wind rose and the rain beat upon the roof in sudden furious blasts that made her heart jump wildly....