Monica had never seen her cousin so disturbed. "Oh, Alice, I couldn't help it," she said. "I couldn't. It was so beautiful. If it hadn't been for that letter, I'd never have found it."
Alice drew her breath in sharply. Her voice, when next she spoke, was gentler. "I know how beautiful it is, Monica. That's why mother couldn't bring herself to destroy it, even though its destruction would have broken the curse on it."
She became suddenly agitated, and her words tumbled over one another in her hurry to say what preyed on her mind.
"Now you've worn it, and I'm afraid for you, Monica. Aunt Juliet had the same dreams before she died; she got weaker and weaker. That mask, and her visions of the dark woman." She paused suddenly, suspicious. "You haven't had any 'visions', have you?"
Monica nodded. "I'm sorry, Alice, but I've seen Aunt Juliet twice. I tried to believe they were dreams, but I wasn't sleeping."
Alice covered her face with her hands, trying to hide her agitation. "We mustn't let mother know anything about this," she said. "She'll have to know you're ill, but we'll try to cover up these symptoms. You see, mother has a terribly weak heart, and if she thought that—that anything might happen to you, as it did to Aunt Juliet, I'm afraid. . . ."
Monica nodded. "Yes, she mustn't know," she whispered. It was an effort for her to speak, and Alice noticed.
"I'm going to call the doctor now, Monica," she said.
"Yes, but wait. Under the bed—the mask. Put it back into the locked room in case Aunt Susan might go in there. If it weren't there, she'd know."
Alice bent and found the mask; she left the room holding it gingerly in her fingers.
Aunt Susan, who felt that the girls were keeping something from her, managed to see the doctor alone after his second visit.
"Tell me, Doctor, what ails my niece?"
The doctor shrugged. "Honestly, Mrs. Fraser, I don't know. I feel she is keeping something from me. Perhaps she has been working too hard."
"My niece does very little work."
"That makes it all the more strange. Something is sapping her strength. However, she is working back to normal again; so there's nothing to worry about."
With that, Aunt Susan had to be content.
Five days later, Monica had what Alice explained to her mother as a "relapse". Monica had had the dream again, and her condition alarmed even the doctor when he came. But because he had been warned by Alice, he did not communicate his alarm to Mrs. Fraser.
To Monica, Alice said, "We can't keep this from mother much longer."
Monica murmured, "I'm sorry. But don't say anything until—until the doctor can tell what will happen.”
Alice looked at her cousin in anguish. "Oh, Monica, don't you see? He can't prevent your having dreams, can he? He can't prevent something he can't see." Her voice trembled. "Monica, don't you see?—you're going, like Aunt Juliet."
Monica closed her eyes tightly, pressing her lips together. Her hand and arm outstretched upon the coverlet shuddered violently. "No, no," she whispered harshly, "I'm not . . . I can't . . ."
Alice dropped to her knees. "I'm sorry, Monica," she said.
A week later Alice was awakened in the night by the sound of Monica thrashing wildly about in her bed. She had moved into Monica's room "to watch her," as she had explained to her
