On the floor in front of the broken looking-
glass lay a mass of black stuff in a grewsome long ridge.
"It's something you dropped there," almost shouted Mr. Townsend.
"It ain't. Oh!"
Mr. Townsend dropped his wife's arm and took one stride toward the
object. It was a very long crape veil. He lifted it, and it
floated out from his arm as if imbued with electricity.
"It's yours," he said to his wife.
"Oh, David, I never had one. You know, oh, you know I--shouldn't--
unless you died. How came it there?"
"I'm darned if I know," said David, regarding it. He was deadly
pale, but still resentful rather than afraid.
"Don't hold it; don't!"
"I'd like to know what in thunder all this means?" said David. He
gave the thing an angry toss and it fell on the floor in exactly
the same long heap as before.
Cordelia began to weep with racking sobs. Mrs. Townsend reached
out and caught her husband's hand, clutching it hard with ice-cold
fingers.
"What's got into this house, anyhow?" he growled.
"You'll have to sell it. Oh, David, we can't live here."
"As for my selling a house I paid only five thousand for when it's
worth twenty-five, for any such nonsense as this, I won't!"
David gave one stride toward the black veil, but it rose from the
floor and moved away before him across the room at exactly the same
height as if suspended from a woman's head.
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