ht was very still.

The hard frost had kept the world iron-bound in a sprinkle of snow
during the last two or three days, but this afternoon the thaw had
begun. Twice during dinner there had come the thud of masses of snow
falling from the roof on to the lawn outside, and the clear sparkle of
the candles had seemed a little dim and hazy. "It would be a comfort
to get at the garden again," she had reflected.

And now that the two sat here in the windless silence the thaw became
more apparent every instant. The silence was profound, and the little
noises of the night outside, the drip from the eaves slow and
deliberate, the rustle of released leaves, and even the gentle thud on
the lawn from the yew branches--all these helped to emphasize the
stillness. It was not like the murmur of day; it was rather like the
gnawing of a mouse in the wainscot of some death chamber.

It requires almost superhumanly strong nerves to sit at night, after a
conversation of this kind, opposite an apparently reasonable person
who is white and twitching with terror, even though one resolutely
refrains from looking at him, without being slightly affected. One may
argue with oneself to any extent, tap one's foot cheerfully on the
floor, fill the mind most painstakingly with normal thoughts; yet it
is something of a conflict, however victorious one may be.

Even Maggie herself became aware of this.

It was not that now for one single moment she allowed that the two
little sudden noises in the room could possibly proceed from any cause
whatever except that which she had stated--the relaxation of stiffened
wood under the influence of the thaw. Nor had all Laurie's arguments
prevailed to shake in the smallest degree her resolute conviction that
there was nothing whatever preternatural in his certainly queer story.

Yet, as she sat there in the lamplight, with Laurie speechless before
her, and the great curtained window behind, she became conscious of an
uneasiness that she could not entirely repel. It was just physical,
she said; it was the result of the change of weather; or, at the most,
it was the silence that had now fallen and the proximity of a
terrified boy.

She looked across at him again.

He was lying back in the old green arm-chair, his eyes rather shadowed
from the lamp overhead, quite still and quiet, his hands still
clasping the lion bosses of his chair-arms. Beside him, on the little
table, lay his still smoldering cigarette-e