ked away, and some
other content, inert and heavy, had taken the place of the books.

Miss Emily in her high bed, her Bible and spectacles on the stand beside
her, her starched pillows, her soft and highbred voice? Or another
Miss Emily, panting and terror-stricken, carrying down her armfuls of
forbidden books, her slight figure bent under their weight, her ears
open for sounds from the silent house? Or that third Miss Emily, Martin
Sprague's, a strange wild creature, neither sane nor insane, building a
crime out of the fabric of a nightmare? Which was the real Emily Benton?

Or was there another contingency that I had not thought of? Had some
secret enemy of Miss Emily's, some hysterical girl from the parish,
suffering under a fancied slight, or some dismissed and revengeful
servant, taken this strange method of retaliation, done it and then
warned the little old lady that her house contained such a paper? I
confess that this last thought took hold on me. It offered a way out
that I clutched at.

I had an almost frantic feeling by that time that I must know the
truth. Suspense was weighing on me. And Maggie, never slow to voice
an unpleasant truth, said that night, as she brought the carafe of
ice-water to the library, "You're going off the last few days, Miss
Agnes." And when I made no reply: "You're sagging around the chin.
There's nothing shows age like the chin. If you'd rub a little
lemon-juice on at night you'd tighten up some."

I ignored her elaborately, but I knew she was right. Heat and sleepless
nights and those early days of fear had told on me. And although I
usually disregard Maggie's cosmetic suggestions, culled from the beauty
columns of the evening paper, a look in the mirror decided me. I went
downstairs for the lemon. At least, I thought it was for the lemon. I
am not sure. I have come to be uncertain of my motives. It is distinctly
possible that, sub-consciously, I was making for the cellar all the
time. I only know that I landed there, with a lemon in my hand, at
something after eleven o'clock.

The books were piled in disorder on the shelves. Their five years of
burial had not hurt them beyond a slight dampness of the leaves. No
hand, I believe, had touched them since they were taken from the box
where Mrs. Graves had helped to pack them. Then, if I were shrewd, I
should perhaps gather something from their very disorder, But, as a
matter of fact, I did not.

I would, quite certainly, have g