“How should I know?” she said.

“It has been there every night since he died!” cried Rebecca.

“Every night?”

“Yes; he died Thursday and this is Saturday; that makes three nights,” said Caroline rigidly.  She stood as if holding her calm with a vise of concentrated will.

“It—­it looks like—­like—­” stammered Mrs. Brigham in a tone of intense horror.

“I know what it looks like well enough,” said Caroline.  “I’ve got eyes in my head.”

“It looks like Edward,” burst out Rebecca in a sort of frenzy of fear.  “Only——­”

“Yes, it does,” assented Mrs. Brigham, whose horror-stricken tone matched her sisters’, “only—­Oh, it is awful!  What is it, Caroline?”

“I ask you again, how should I know?” replied Caroline.  “I see it there like you.  How should I know any more than you?”

“It must be something in the room,” said Mrs. Brigham, staring wildly around.

“We moved everything in the room the first night it came,” said Rebecca; “it is not anything in the room.”

Caroline turned upon her with a sort of fury.  “Of course it is something in the room,” said she.  “How you act!  What do you mean talking so?  Of course it is something in the room.”

“Of course it is,” agreed Mrs. Brigham, looking at Caroline suspiciously.  “It must be something in the room.”

“It is not anything in the room,” repeated Rebecca with obstinate horror.

The door opened suddenly and Henry Glynn entered.  He began to speak, then his eyes followed the direction of the others.  He stood staring at the shadow on the wall.

“What is that?” he demanded in a strange voice.

“It must be due to something in the room,” Mrs. Brigham said faintly.

Henry Glynn stood and stared a moment longer.  His face showed a gamut of emotions.  Horror, conviction, then furious incredulity.  Suddenly he began hastening hither and thither about the room.  He moved the furniture with fierce jerks, turning ever to see the effect upon the shadow on the wall.  Not a line of its terrible outlines wavered.

“It must be something in the room!” he declared in a voice which seemed to snap like a lash.

His face changed, the inmost secrecy of his nature seemed evident upon his face, until one almost lost sight of his lineaments.  Rebecca stood close to her sofa, regarding him with woeful, fascinated eyes.  Mrs. Brigham clutched Caroline’s hand.  They both stood in a corner out of his way.  For a few moments he raged about the room like a caged wild animal.  He moved every piece of furniture; when the moving of a piece did not affect the shadow he flung it to the floor.

Then suddenly he desisted.  He laughed.

“What an absurdity,” he said easily.  “Such a to-do about a shadow.”

“That’s so,” assented Mrs. Brigham, in a scared voice which she tried to make natural.  As she spoke she lifted a chair near her.