The Shadow by Nezbner

The Shadow by Innesbit.

This is not an artistically rounded off ghost story and nothing is explained in it,

and there seems to be no reason why any of it should have happened.

But that is no reason why it should not be told.

You must have noticed that all the real ghost stories you have ever come close to are like this in these respects.

No explanation, no logical coherence. Here is the story. There were three of us and another,

but she had fainted suddenly at the second extra of the Christmas dance,

and had been put to bed in the dressing room next to the room which we three shared.

It had been one of those jolly, old-fashioned dances where nearly everybody stays the night,

and the big country house is stretched to its utmost containing,

guests harboring on sofas, couches,

settles, and even mattresses on floors.

Some of the young men actually, I believe, slept on the great dining table.

We had talked of our partners as girls will, and then the stillness of the manor-house,

broken only by the whisper of the wind in the cedar

branches and the scraping of their harsh fingers against our window-panes, had pricked us to

such luxurious confidence in our surroundings of bright chintz and candle-flame and firelight

that we had dared to talk of ghosts, in which we all said we did not believe one bit.

We had told the story of the phantom coach, and the horribly strange bed, and the lady in the sack, and the house in Berkeley Square.

We none of us believed in ghosts, but my heart at least seemed to leap to my throat and choke

me there when a tap came to our door. A tap, faint, not to be mistaken. Who's there? said the youngest

...