Most of the shelves were open, but now, holding the lamp high, I saw that a closet with a door occupied one end.  The door was padlocked.  At the time I was interested, but I was, as I remember, much more occupied with Maggie’s sense of meum and tuum, which I considered deficient, and of a small lecture on other people’s melon rinds, which I delivered as she sullenly put away the jelly.

But that night, after I had gone to bed, the memory of that padlock became strangely insistent.  There was nothing psychic about the feeling I had.  It was perfectly obvious and simple.  The house held, or had held, a secret.  Yet it was, above stairs, as open as the day.  There was no corner into which I might not peer, except—­Why was that portion of the fruit-closet locked?

At two o’clock, finding myself unable to sleep, I got up and put on my dressing-gown and slippers.  I had refused to repeat the experiment of being locked in.  Then, with a candle and a box of matches, I went downstairs.  I had, as I have said, no longer any terror of the lower floor.  The cat lay as usual on the table in the back hall.  I saw his eyes watching me with their curious unblinking stare, as intelligent as two brass buttons.  He rose as my light approached, and I made a bed for him of a cushion from a chair, failing my Paisley shawl.

It was after that that I had the curious sense of being led.  It was as though I knew that something awaited my discovery, and that my sole volition was whether I should make that discovery or not.  It was there, waiting.

I have no explanation for this.  And it is quite possible that I might have had it, to find at the end nothing more significant than root-beer, for instance, or bulbs for the winter garden.

And indeed, at first sight, what awaited me in the locked closet amounted to anti-climax.  For when I had broken the rusty padlock open with a hatchet, and had opened doors with nervous fingers, nothing more startling appeared than a number of books.  The shelves were piled high with them, a motley crew of all colors, but dark shades predominating.

I went back to bed, sheepishly enough, and wrapped my chilled feet in an extra blanket.  Maggie came to the door about the time I was dozing off and said she had heard hammering downstairs in the cellar some time ago, but she had refused to waken me until the burglars had gone.

“If it was burglars,” she added, “you’re that up-and-ready, Miss Agnes, that I knew if I waked you you’d be downstairs after them.  What’s a bit of silver to a human life?”

I got her away at last, and she went, muttering something about digging up the cellar floor and finding an uneasy spirit.  Then I fell asleep.

I had taken cold that night, and the following morning I spent in bed.  At noon Maggie came upstairs, holding at arm’s length a book.  She kept her face averted, and gave me a slanting and outraged glance.