be done.”
“What must be done, Mary?”
“Well, miss, I don't say as it mayn't be nerves; nerves is mysterious things as well I know, havin' lived in a haunted house in the old country where chains was dragged up and down the front stairs regular after dark, and such-like doin's which all of us took as a matter of course, but which was explained to the help when they was engaged. But I do think that Mrs. Brane had ought to move Robbie out of that wing. Yes'm, that I do.”
“Has anything more happened?” I asked blankly.
“Yes'm. That is to say, Robbie's nightmares has been gettin' worse than ever, and, last night, when I run into the nursery, jumpin' out of my bed as quick as I could and not even stoppin' for my slippers—you know, miss, I sleep right next to the nursery, and keeps a night light burnin', for I'm not one of the people that holds to discipline and lets a nervous child cry hisself into fits—when I come in I seen the nursery door close, and just a bit of a gown of some sort whiskin' round the edge. Robbie was most beside hisself, I did n't hardly dare to leave him, but I run to the door and I flung it wide open sudden, the way a body does when they're scairt-like but means to do the right thing, and, in course, the hall was dark, but miss,”—Mary swallowed,—“I heard a footstep far down the passage in the direction of your room.”
My blood chilled all along my veins. “In the direction of my room?”
“Yes, miss, so much so that I thought it must'a' been you, and I felt a bit easier like, but when I come back to Robbie—” here she turned her troubled eyes from my face—“why, he was yellin' and screamin' again about that woman with red hair.... Oh, Miss Gale, ma'am, don't you be angry with me. You know I'm your friend, but, miss, did you ever walk in your sleep?”
“No, Mary, no,” I said, and, to my surprise, I had no more of a voice than a whisper to say it in.
After a pause, “You must lock me in at night after this, Mary,” I added more firmly.
“Or, better still, after Robbie is sound asleep, let me come into your bedroom. You can make me up some sort of a bed there, and we will
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