“Very small things, but significant it seemed to me. He changed his workroom from the library, as we call it, to the sitting room. He said all his characters became wrong and terrible in the library; they altered, so that he felt like writing tragedies⁠—vile, debased tragedies, the tragedies of broken souls. But now he says the same of the sitting room, and he’s gone back to the library.”

“Ah!”

“You see, there’s so little I can tell you,” she went on, with increasing speed and countless gestures. “I mean it’s only very small things he does and says that are queer. What frightens me is that he assumes there is someone else in the house all the time⁠—someone I never see. He does not actually say so, but on the stairs I’ve seen him standing aside to let someone pass; I’ve seen him open a door to let someone in or out; and often in our bedrooms he puts chairs about as though for someone else to sit in. Oh⁠—oh yes, and once or twice,” she cried⁠—“once or twice⁠—”

She paused, and looked about her with a startled air.