looked into her. Laura Murray felt that those burning eyes read her soul.
“You are lying to me,” cried Emily. “You don’t mean to try to get her out. You are only saying it to put me off. Aunt Elizabeth,” she suddenly turned and caught Aunt Elizabeth’s hand, “you’ll do it for me, won’t you? You’ll go and get her out of the old well, won’t you?”
Elizabeth remembered that Dr. Burnley had said that Emily’s whims must be humoured. She was terrified by the child’s condition.
“Yes, I’ll get her out if she is in there,” she said. Emily released her hand and sank down. The wild glare left her eyes. A great sudden calm fell over her anguished little face.
“I know you’ll keep your word,” she said. “You are very hard—but you never lie, Aunt Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth Murray went back to her own room and dressed herself with her shaking fingers. A little later, when Emily had fallen into a quiet sleep, Laura went down stairs and heard Elizabeth giving Cousin Jimmy some orders in the kitchen.
“Elizabeth, you don’t really mean to have that old well searched?”
“I do,” said Elizabeth resolutely. “I know it’s nonsense as well as you do. But I had to promise it to quiet her down—and I’ll keep my promise. You heard what she said—she believed I wouldn’t lie to her. Nor will I. Jimmy, you will go over to James Lee’s after breakfast and ask him to come here.”
“How has she heard the story?” said Laura.
“I don’t know—oh, some one has told her, of course—perhaps that old demon of a Nancy Priest. It doesn’t matter who. She has heard it and the thing is to keep her quiet. It isn’t so much of a job to put ladders in the well and get some one to go down it. The thing that matters is the absurdity of it.”
