I asked with a queer feeling of distress, my eyes
glued to the papers. "Promised always to show them to her first," she finished so low I
barely caught it. I have no intuitive, immediate grasp of the value of paintings; results
come to me slowly, and though every one believes his own judgment to be
good, I dare not claim that mine is worth more than that of any other
layman, Frances had too often convicted me of gross ignorance and error. I can only say that I examined these sketches with a feeling of
amazement that contained revulsion, if not actually horror and disgust. They were outrageous. I felt hot for my sister, and it was a relief to
know she had moved across the room on some pretence or other, and did
not examine them with me. Her talent, of course, is mediocre, yet she
has her moments of inspiration--moments, that is to say, when a view of
Beauty not normally her own flames divinely through her. And these
interpretations struck me forcibly as being thus "inspired"--not her
own. They were uncommonly well done; they were also atrocious. The
meaning in them, however, was never more than hinted. There the unholy
skill and power came in: they suggested so abominably, leaving most to
the imagination. To find such significance in a bourgeois villa garden,
and to interpret it with such delicate yet legible certainty, was a kind
of symbolism that was sinister, even diabolical. The delicacy was her
own, but the point of view was another's. And the word that rose in my mind was not the gross description of
"impure," but the more fundamental qualification--"un-pure." In silence I turned the sketches over one by one, as a boy hurries
through the pages of an evil book lest he be caught. "What does Mabel do with them?" I asked presently in a low tone, as I
neared the end. "Does she keep them?" "She makes notes about them in a book and then destroys them," was the
reply from the end of the room. I heard a sigh of relief. "I'm glad
you've seen them, Bill. I wanted you to--but was afraid to show them. You understand?" "I understand," was my reply, though it was not a question intended to
be answered. All I understood really was that Mabel's mind was as sweet
and pure as my sister's, and that she had some good reason for what she
did. She destroyed the sketches, but first made notes! It was an
interpretation of the place she sought. Brother-like, I felt resentment,
though, that Frances should waste her time and talent, when she might be
doing work that she could sell. Naturally, I felt other things as
well....

"Mabel pays me five guineas for each one," I heard. "Absolutely
insists." I stared at her stupidly a moment, bereft of speech or wit. "I must
either accept, or go away," she went on calmly, but a little white. "I've tried everything. There was a scene the third day I was here--when
I showed her my first result. I wanted to write to you, but hesitated--"

"It's unintentional, then, on your part--forgive my asking it, Frances,
dear?" I blundered, hardly knowing what to think or say. "Between the
lines" of her letter came back to me. "I mean, you make the sketches in
your ordinary way and--the result comes out of itself, so to speak?" She nodded, throwing her hands out like a Frenchman. "We needn't keep
the money for ourselves, Bill. We can give it away, but--I must either
accept or leave," and she repeated the shrugging gesture. She sat down
on the chair facing me, staring helplessly at the carpet. "You say there was a scene?" I went on presently, "She insisted?" "She begged me to continue," my sister replied very quietly. "She
thinks--that is, she has an idea or theory that there's something about
the place--something she can't get at quite." Frances stammered badly. She knew I did not encourage her wild theories. "Something she feels--yes," I helped her, more than curious. "Oh, you know what I mean, Bill," she said desperately. "That the place
is saturated with some influence that she is herself too positive or too
stupid to interpret. She's trying to make herself negative and
receptive, as she calls it, but can't, of course, succeed. Haven't you
noticed how dull and impersonal and insipid she seems, as though she had
no personality? She thinks impressions will come to her that way. But
they don't--"

"Naturally." "So she's trying me--us--what she calls the sensitive and impressionable
artistic temperament. She says that until she is sure exactly what this
influence is, she can't fight it, turn it out, 'get the house straight',
as she phrases it." Remembering my own singular impressions, I felt more lenient than I
might otherwise have done. I tried to keep impatience out of my voice. "And this influence, what--whose is it?" We used the pronoun that followed in the same breath, for I answered my
own question at the same moment as she did:

"His." Our heads nodded involuntarily towards the floor, the dining room
being directly underneath. And my heart sank, my curiosity died away on the instant; I felt bored. A commonplace haunted house was the last thing in the world to amuse or
interest me. The mere thought exasperated, with its suggestions of
imagination, overwrought nerves, hysteria, and the rest. Mingled with my other feelings was certainly disappointment. To see a
figure or feel a "presence," and report from day to day strange
incidents to each other would be a form of weariness I could never
tolerate. "But really, Frances," I said firmly, after a moment's pause, "it's too
far-fetched, this explanation. A curse, you know, belongs to the ghost
stories of early Victorian days." And only my positive conviction that
there was something after all worth discovering, and that it most
certainly was not this, prevented my suggesting that we terminate our
visit forthwith, or as soon as we decently could. "This is not a haunted
house, whatever it is," I concluded somewhat vehemently, bringing my
hand down upon her odious portfolio. My sister's reply revived my curiosity sharply. "I was waiting for you to say that. Mabel says exactly the same. He is
in it--but it's something more than that alone, something far bigger and
more complicated." Her sentence seemed to indicate the sketches, and
though I caught the inference I did not take it up, having no desire to
discuss them with her just them indeed, if ever. I merely stared at her and listened. Questions, I felt sure, would be of
little use. It was better she should say her thought in her own way. "He is one influence, the most recent," she went on slowly, and always
very calmly, "but there are others--deeper layers, as it were--
underneath. If his were the only one, something would happen. But
nothing ever does happen. The others hinder and prevent--as though each
were struggling to predominate." I had felt it already myself. The idea was rather horrible. I shivered. "That's what is so ugly about it--that nothing ever happens," she said.