Evidence of Things Seen Read Online Free

don’t know what you mean by a mysterious door.”
    â€œThe door that doesn’t go anywhere. The door without any step, under the lilac bush.”
    â€œMy sister had that room,” said Miss Radford in a cold voice. “When she decided to stay there winters, of course we closed the door up and plugged the keyhole; if she’d lived we would have papered over. I guess you don’t know how much wind comes through keyholes and cracks in a cottage like this. The cracks ain’t so bad, that door fits quite tight; but if she’d lived we would have papered over.”
    â€œI don’t suppose you’d want us to have the door opened again for the summer? Mr. and Mrs. Heron’s maid will have the room, and it would be nice and cool for her with the door open.”
    â€œI guess it had better stay shut. Most people wouldn’t care for an outside door to their bedroom, and the new paint will get marred up if we take the plug out and put back the latch.”
    â€œThen I’ll forget about it,” said Clara cheerfully. “Won’t you come in, just for a minute, and see how nice everything is?”
    â€œIf you’ll excuse me, I can’t leave old Bill. He don’t stand.”
    â€œI could get a piece of rope.”
    â€œI’d better be getting along home, if you’ll excuse me.”
    â€œWell, but you must come over and call on me some day; everybody calls on a new neighbor, don’t they?”
    â€œI hope you’ll excuse me. You’d be surprised how much a farm takes out of you; and that old Sam I have, he can’t hardly stoop to dig.” Miss Radford picked up the reins and chirped. The gray horse, which had not seemed averse to standing while the conversation went on, slowly extended himself for the pull uphill. The buggy moved away, and up to a slight widening in the road above the cottage.
    Clara stood watching her landlady execute the maneuver of the turn; it was accomplished with much chirping on her part, much jerking of first one rein and then the other, much backing and advancing on the part of the gray, and a perilous undercutting of high wheels. As it passed the cottage again Miss Radford bowed stiffly, her hands close together and her wrists high. Clara thought: If Old Bill fell down, he’d drag her over the dashboard.
    Maggie came out and took the basket. “Not a wheel did I hear,” she said. “This dirt road is as quiet as tanbark.”
    â€œShe won’t come in, Maggie; and I don’t think she wants me to go to the farm.”
    â€œYou’d be ate by the dogs. Nobody can go through that fence of hers unless she comes out and speaks to the animals.”
    Clara forgot for the moment that she had not intended to discuss these matters with her maid. “I think she hates the cottage. She never once looked at it, and she talks about it as we were nothing to her.”
    â€œPerhaps it’s sad for her, on account of the sister dying in it. We ought to be thankful we’ll not have her underfoot, counting the broken dishes.”
    â€œI wonder whether the sister didn’t die in that room with the sealed door.”
    Maggie’s face convinced Clara that that was where the sister had died. Clara walked around the kitchen wing again, pushed aside the sprawling branches of the great lilac, and once more contemplated the yellow panels and the plugged keyhole. The door was blank as a veiled face; it had a strange air of having lost its identity as a door, and become a mere closed chapter in Miss Radford’s life.
    Clara walked resolutely around to the front of the cottage, along the whole of its length, and up the outside stair to her bedroom. It was the longest route to the attic, but she was not conscious of having followed it for that reason; she would have declared to any listener that it was impossible to be afraid of an attic on a morning like this one.
    She went through into the