I had a warning last night. There wasn't a
soul there. They've been sent for to Lincoln."

"Did you see anybody to ask?" asked Mrs. Dent with thinly concealed
anxiety.

"I asked the woman that lives on the turn of the road. She's stone
deaf. I suppose you know. She listened while I screamed at her to
know where the Slocums were, and then she said, 'Mrs. Smith don't live
here.' I didn't see anybody on the road, and that's the only house.
What do you suppose it means?"

"I don't suppose it means much of anything," replied Mrs. Dent coolly.
"Mr. Slocum is conductor on the railroad, and he'd be away anyway, and
Mrs. Slocum often goes early when he does, to spend the day with her
sister in Porter's Falls. She'd be more likely to go away than Addie."

"And you don't think anything has happened?" Rebecca asked with
diminishing distrust before the reasonableness of it.

"Land, no!"

Rebecca went upstairs to lay aside her coat and bonnet. But she came
hurrying back with them still on.

"Who's been in my room?" she gasped. Her face was pale as ashes.

Mrs. Dent also paled as she regarded her.

"What do you mean?" she asked slowly.

"I found when I went upstairs that--little nightgown of--Agnes's
on--the bed, laid out. It was--LAID OUT. The sleeves were folded
across the bosom, and there was that little red rose between them.
Emeline, what is it? Emeline, what's the matter? Oh!"

Mrs. Dent was struggling for breath in great, choking gasps. She clung
to the back of a chair. Rebecca, trembling herself so she could
scarcely keep on her feet, got her some water.

As soon as she recovered herself Mrs. Dent regarded her with eyes full
of the strangest mixture of fear and horror and hostility.

"What do you mean talking so?" she said in a hard voice.

"It IS THERE."

"Nonsense. You threw it down and it fell that way."

"It was folded in my bureau drawer."

"It couldn't have been."

"Who picked that red rose?"

"Look on the bush," Mrs. Dent replied shortly.

Rebecca looked at her; her mouth gaped. She hurried out of the room.
When she came back her eyes seemed to protrude. (She had in the
meantime hastened upstairs, and come down with tottering steps,
clinging to the banisters.)

"Now I want to know what all this means?" she demanded.

"What what means?"

"The rose is on the bush, and it's gone from the bed in my room! Is
this house haunted, or what?"

"I don't know anything about a house