“Now, at three o’clock there was plenty of light coming in the dormer windows of the attic, and I could see all the wicker furniture—whole sets of it, it seemed to me, with couches, chairs, et cetera—and the various trunks.

“I inspected first a wardrobe trunk that had belonged to Gravier Blackwood and was now standing open with its little hangers and drawers all vacant and clean.

“Then there were suitcases with old clothes in them that did not seem to be all that fascinating, and more trunks, all stamped with the name of Lorraine McQueen. New things. What were they to me? Surely there was something older, something that had belonged perhaps to Manfred’s sainted wife, Virginia Lee.

“Then I came upon a big canvas steamer trunk with leather straps to it, so big that the lid came almost to my waist, and I was already six feet tall. The lid was open a little, and the clothes were bulging out of it, the whole smelling strongly of mold, and the label on the top of the trunk read in faded ink ‘Rebecca Stanford,’ with the address of Blackwood Farm.

“ ‘Rebecca Stanford,’ I said aloud. Who could this be? Very distinctly, I heard a rustling noise behind me, or was it ahead of me? I stopped and listened. It could have been rats, of course, but we really didn’t have rats in Blackwood Manor. Then it seemed the rustling was a conversation between a man and a woman and someone arguing . . . Just doesn’t happen. I heard those words very distinctly, and then the woman’s voice . . . Believe in him, he will do it!

“She had pasted on the label, I thought. She’d packed her trunk and pasted on the label. She’d been waiting for him to come get her. Miss Rebecca Stanford.

“But where did all these thoughts come from?

“Then the noise came again. It had a rather deliberate sound to it. I felt the hair stand up on my neck. I liked the excitement. I loved it. It was infinitely better than depression and misery, than thoughts of guns and death.

“I thought, A ghost is going to come. Voices. No, a rustling. It will be stronger than the apparition of William. It will be stronger than the vaporous ghosts that hover over the cemetery. It’s going to come because of this trunk. Maybe it will be Aunt Camille, who has been seen so often on the stairs, coming up to the attic.

“ ‘Who are you, Rebecca Stanford?’ I whispered. Silence. I opened the trunk. A mess of clothing was inside it and mildew had grown all over it, and there were other articles all tumbled with the fabrics—an old silver-backed hairbrush, a silver-edged comb, bottles of perfume in which the contents had dried up and a silver-backed mirror, all splotched and darkened and no good anymore.