He sounds like quite an eccentric all the way around. He certainly set you up for a shock, wearing a hood and talking about horrors and ghostly rides. I suppose if you saw him neatly trimmed and brushed by daylight, you would have thought he looked odd, but you were tired and unstrung, and he wanted to give you a scare. Your nerves weren’t ready for it, that’s all. You haven’t been yourself these last several weeks.”

A short time later, Kate lay in bed listening to the rain against the windows and the ominous rumble of the thunder. Flashes of lightning lit the sky. She stared up into the darkness overhead, dreadfully tired but too upset to sleep. She was contrasting the terrifying memory with the humiliation of trying to describe it. She wasn’t sure which one was worse.

Her door creaked open in the darkness. A small figure padded in and snuggled down next to her.

“Kate, are you awake?” came a whisper. “I’m sorry I made you mad. If you don’t like that man, I don’t like him either, but it was splendid to hear him call Mr. Roberts a pigheaded fool.”

“Yes, I suppose it was,” Kate whispered back. She hugged her sister and smiled a little at the memory.

“I’ve thought of something,” Emily whispered. “I’ll bet he was a ghost. Did he shimmer a little? Do you think he was a ghost?”

“I don’t know,” Kate murmured sleepily. “Maybe he was. Maybe his skin shimmered. It certainly looked odd.”

“Did he look as if he’d been dead a long time?” Emily asked.

“No,” came the drowsy reply.

“Well—how about a little while?” Emily prompted hopefully. She waited. “Kate? Had he been dead a little while?” But no answer came. Her sister was asleep.

Kate’s nightmares left her no peace. A man in a black hood kept dragging her from the house. She caught onto chairs, banisters, door frames, anything within reach, but he was stronger than she was and just laughed at her. She couldn’t see his face, but his eyes gleamed brightly from beneath the hood. When dawn came, she was glad to get up.