“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 by talking so?  Of course it is something in the room.”

“Of course, it is,” agreed Mrs. Brigham, looking at Caroline suspiciously.  “Of course it must be.  It is only a coincidence.  It just happens so.  Perhaps it is that fold of the window curtain that makes it.  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 stock still staring at the shadow on the wall.  It was life size and stretched across the white parallelogram of a door, half across the wall space on which the picture hung.

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

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

“It is not due to anything in the room,” said Rebecca again with the shrill insistency of terror.

“How you act, Rebecca Glynn,” said Caroline.

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 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, the sisters watching.

Then suddenly he desisted.  He laughed and began straightening the furniture which he had flung down.

“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.

“I think you have broken the chair that Edward was so 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.”