But when the fire was leaping high and crackling loudly she still felt the need of something to occupy her mind. There was an eerie, insistent personality to the library. Its high, small-paned French windows were heavily-curtained, and its furniture, of a substantial design several decades old, was upholstered in the same sombre brown tone that characterised the curtains and the great deep-piled rug that occupied the entire floor space. Curtained wall-shelves and ancient, glass-doored cases were crowded with leather-bound volumes of a heterogeneous variety as well as departmental government books in blue paper covers. There were several tiers of the classics, dog-eared and much thumb-worn, but the majority of the books were devoted to science, psychology, mineralogy and forestry. None of the books contained a name to designate to whom they belonged, though many of the older ones had fly-leaves torn from them that bespoke some one’s precaution against identification.
The girl, tiring of rummaging through the books, turned her attention to the square, black mahogany piano across one corner of the room, wondering vaguely what might be the history of this strange place, what story these walls might tell if they could speak. It was a quaint old instrument with a wonderfully mellow tone. Some cultured person must have at some time occupied this chateau, some one of a distinctly scientific turn, she reflected. Who were they and what had become of them? She shivered involuntarily. Was it fancy, or did she sense a silent, unseen presence in this room?
She ran her lithe fingers over the keys and struck up a popular air from memory. The music seemed to dissipate her oppression and lift the heavy melancholy of her surroundings.
The girl played on and on, until wearying of memory selections, she thought to look over a sheaf of music on the back of the instrument. During the pause she was sure she heard a light tapping at the door off the hall to her left.
She listened, at first quite startled; but when the tapping was repeated, something human and deferential in the summons reassured her.
Josephine Stone switched on the hall light, opened the door leading to the porch and drew back with a startled exclamation.