“I think you have broken the chair that Edward was fond of,” said Caroline.

Terror and wrath were struggling for expression on her face.  Her mouth was set, her eyes shrinking.  Henry lifted the chair with a show of anxiety.

“Just as good as ever,” he said pleasantly.  He laughed again, looking at his sisters.  “Did I scare you?” he said.  “I should think you might be used to me by this time.  You know my way of wanting to leap to the bottom of a mystery, and that shadow does look—­queer, like—­and I thought if there was any way of accounting for it I would like to without any delay.”

“You don’t seem to have succeeded,” remarked Caroline dryly, with a slight glance at the wall.

Henry’s eyes followed hers and he quivered perceptibly.

“Oh, there is no accounting for shadows,” he said, and he laughed again.  “A man is a fool to try to account for shadows.”

Then the supper bell rang, and they all left the room, but Henry kept his back to the wall—­as did, indeed, the others.

Henry led the way with an alert motion like a boy; Rebecca brought up the rear.  She could scarcely walk, her knees trembled so.

“I can’t sit in that room again this evening,” she whispered to Caroline after supper.

“Very well; we will sit in the south room,” replied Caroline.  “I think we will sit in the south parlor,” she said aloud; “it isn’t as damp as the study, and I have a cold.”

So they all sat in the south room with their sewing.  Henry read the newspaper, his chair drawn close to the lamp on the table.  About nine o’clock he rose abruptly and crossed the hall to the study.  The three sisters looked at one another.  Mrs. Brigham rose, folded her rustling skirts compactly round her, and began tiptoeing toward the door.

“What are you going to do?” inquired Rebecca agitatedly.

“I am going to see what he is about,” replied Mrs. Brigham cautiously.

As she spoke she pointed to the study door across the hall; it was ajar.  Henry had striven to pull it together behind him, but it had somehow swollen beyond the limit with curious speed.  It was still ajar and a streak of light showed from top to bottom.

Mrs. Brigham folded her skirts so tightly that her bulk with its swelling curves was revealed in a black silk sheath, and she went with a slow toddle across the hall to the study door.  She stood there, her eye at the crack.

In the south room Rebecca stopped sewing and sat watching with dilated eyes.  Caroline sewed steadily.  What Mrs. Brigham, standing at the crack in the study door, saw was this: 

Henry Glynn, evidently reasoning that the source of the strange shadow must be between the table on which the lamp stood and the wall, was making systematic passes and thrusts with an old sword which had belonged to his father all over and through the intervening space.  Not an inch was left unpierced.  He seemed to have divided the space into mathematical sections.  He brandished the sword with a sort of cold fury and calculation; the blade gave out flashes of light, the shadow remained unmoved.  Mrs. Brigham, watching, felt herself cold with horror.