“Up in bed, in one of the attic rooms.  If he hasn’t got his death of cold it’ll be a wonder.  And such yarns as he’s been spinnin’ to me.  I—­Emily, what’s the matter with you?  What makes you act so queer?”

Emily did not answer.  Mrs. Barnes walked across the room and, stooping, peered into her face.

“You’re white as a sheet!” she cried, in alarm.  “And you’re tremblin’ all over.  What in the world is the matter?”

Emily tried to smile, but it was a poor attempt.

“Nothing, nothing, Auntie,” she said.  “That is, I—­I’m sure it can’t be anything to be afraid of.”

“But you are afraid, just the same.  What is it?  Tell me this minute.”

For the first time Emily looked her cousin in the face.

“Auntie,” she whispered, “I am—­I have been frightened.  Something I heard upstairs frightened me.”

“Somethin’ you heard upstairs?  Where?  Has Georgie—­”

“No, Georgie is asleep in his room.  I locked the door.  It wasn’t Georgie; it was something else.”

“Somethin’—­Emily Howes, do you want to scare me to death?  What is it?”

“I don’t know what it is.  I heard it first when I came out of Georgie’s room a few minutes ago.  Then I went down the hall to his door and listened.  Aunt Thankful, he—­he is in there talking—­talking to someone.”

“He?  Talkin’?  Who?”

“Mr. Cobb.  It was dreadful.  He was talking to—­to—­I don’t know what he was talking to, but it was awful to hear.”

“Talkin’?  Solomon Cobb was talkin’?  In his sleep, do you mean?”

“No, he wasn’t asleep.  He was talking to someone, or some thing, in that room.  And that wasn’t all.  I heard—­I heard—­Oh, I did hear it!  I know I did!  And yet it couldn’t be!  It couldn’t!”

“Emily Howes, if you keep on I’ll—­what did you hear?”

“I don’t know. . . .  Aunt Thankful, where are you going?”

Thankful did not answer.  She was on her way to the front hall and the stairs.  Emily rushed after her and would have detained her if she could, but Thankful would not be detained.  Up the stairs they went together and along the narrow dark hall.  At the end of the hall was the door of the back bedroom, or the larger room adjoining it.  The door was closed, but from beneath it shone lamplight in sharp, yellow streaks.  And from behind it came faintly the sound of a deep groan, the groan of a soul in agony.

“He’s sick,” whispered Thankful.  “The man’s sick.  I’m goin’ to him.”

“He isn’t sick.  It—­it’s something else.  I tell you I heard—­”

Thankful did not wait to learn what her cousin had heard.  She tiptoed down the hall and Emily followed.  The two women crouched beside the closed door of Mr. Cobb’s room.  And within that room they heard Solomon’s voice, now rising almost to a shriek, now sinking to a groan, as its owner raved on and on, talking, pleading, praying.