e house only over my dead body."

The latter part of the speech was unfortunate. "My surroundings are so
extremely cheerful," remarked Dorothy, "that I've decided to spend the
afternoon in the library reading Poe. I've always wanted to do it and I
don't believe I'll ever feel any creepier than I do this blessed minute."

In spite of his laughing protest, she went into the library, locked the
door, and curled up in Uncle Ebeneezer's easy chair with a well-thumbed
volume of Poe, finding a two-dollar bill used in one place as a book mark.
She read for some time, then took down another book, which opened of
itself at "The Gold Bug."

The pages were thickly strewn with marginal comments in the fine, small,
shaky hand she had learned to associate with Uncle Ebeneezer. The
paragraph about the skull, in the tree above the treasure, had evidently
filled the last reader with unprecedented admiration, for on the margin
was written twice, in ink: "A very, very pretty idea."

She laughed aloud, for her thoughts since morning had been persistently
directed toward things not of this world. "I'm glad I'm not
superstitious," she thought, then jumped almost out of her chair at the
sound of an ominous crash in the kitchen.

"I won't go," she thought, settling back into her place. "I'll let that
old monument alone just as much as I can."

Upon the whole, it was just as well, for the "old monument" was on her
bony knees, with her head and shoulders quite lost in the secret depths of
the kitchen range. "I wonder," she was muttering, "where 'e could 'ave put
it. It would 'ave been just like that old skinflint to 'ave 'id it in the
stove!"

VI

The Coming of Elaine

There is no state of mental wretchedness akin to that which precedes the
writing of a book. Harlan was moody and despairing, chiefly because he
could not understand what it all meant. Something hung over him like a
black cloud, completely obscuring his usual sunny cheerfulness.

He burned with the desire to achieve, yet from the depths of his soul came
only emptiness. Vague, purposeless aspirations, like disembodied spirits,
haunted him by night and by day. Before his inner vision came unfamiliar
scenes, detached fragments of conversation, the atmosphere, the feeling of
an old romance, then, by a swift change, darkness from which there seemed
no possible escape.

A woman with golden hair, mounted upon a white horse, gay with scarlet and
silver trappings--surely