He traversed the hall with a little night-lamp in his hand, opened the door of the southwest chamber, and essayed to enter.  He might as well have essayed to enter the solid side of a house.  He could not believe his senses.  The door was certainly open; he could look into the room full of soft lights and shadows under the moonlight which streamed into the windows.  He could see the bed in which he had expected to pass the night, but he could not enter.  Whenever he strove to do so he had a curious sensation as if he were trying to press against an invisible person who met him with a force of opposition impossible to overcome.  The minister was not an athletic man, yet he had considerable strength.  He squared his elbows, set his mouth hard, and strove to push his way through into the room.  The opposition which he met was as sternly and mutely terrible as the rocky fastness of a mountain in his way.

For a half hour John Dunn, doubting, raging, overwhelmed with spiritual agony as to the state of his own soul rather than fear, strove to enter that southwest chamber.  He was simply powerless against this uncanny obstacle.  Finally a great horror as of evil itself came over him.  He was a nervous man and very young.  He fairly fled to his own chamber and locked himself in like a terror-stricken girl.

The next morning he went to Miss Gill and told her frankly what had happened, and begged her to say nothing about it lest he should have injured the cause by the betrayal of such weakness, for he actually had come to believe that there was something wrong with the room.

“What it is I know not, Miss Sophia,” said he, “but I firmly believe, against my will, that there is in that room some accursed evil power at work, of which modern faith and modern science know nothing.”

Miss Sophia Gill listened with grimly lowering face.  She had an inborn respect for the clergy, but she was bound to hold that southwest chamber in the dearly beloved old house of her fathers free of blame.

“I think I will sleep in that room myself to-night,” she said, when the minister had finished.

He looked at her in doubt and dismay.

“I have great admiration for your faith and courage, Miss Sophia,” he said, “but are you wise?”

“I am fully resolved to sleep in that room to-night,” said she conclusively.  There were occasions when Miss Sophia Gill could put on a manner of majesty, and she did now.

It was ten o’clock that night when Sophia Gill entered the southwest chamber.  She had told her sister what she intended doing and had been proof against her tearful entreaties.  Amanda was charged not to tell the young girl, Flora.

“There is no use in frightening that child over nothing,” said Sophia.

Sophia, when she entered the southwest chamber, set the lamp which she carried on the bureau, and began moving about the rooms pulling down the curtains, taking off the nice white counterpane of the bed, and preparing generally for the night.