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bells were actually ringing, as Mrs. Curtis had said. There was a perfect bedlam in the pantry where they registered, so that periods when the servants were rushing over the house to answer them were varied by others when no one answered them at all. As when, after three false alarms one morning a day or two after her arrival, Juliette rang at ten o’clock for her breakfast tray, and was finally discovered in the upper hall in a chiffon nightgown, shouting furiously to an embarrassed William in the hall below.
    “What the devil’s the matter with you down there?” she called. “I can hear the bell myself.”
    “Sorry, madam,” said William, red to his collar. “We thought it was the ghost again.”
    Which was against orders, but by that time I suspected my entire household of an attempt to get rid of both Juliette and Jordan. Indeed that day Juliette herself accused us of that very thing. She came out later to where I was sitting on the upper porch, my book in my lap and my eyes on the bay, blue in the morning sunlight. Already the seals had disappeared, and far away a mahogany speedboat was tracing a line of white across the water. I looked up to see her staring down at me.
    “What’s this about a ghost?” she demanded.
    “Some superstitious nonsense in the kitchen. The bells have been ringing for some reason or other. I’ll have the wiring looked over tomorrow.”
    She looked amused.
    “No idea of scaring me off, of course,” she said.
    “Certainly not.”
    She laughed, not pleasantly.
    “I’m not easy to scare,” she said. “You might tell the kitchen that. And may I have the car? I’ve ordered a horse. I’m fed up with loafing. No word from Arthur, I suppose?”
    “He’s barely had time to get my letter.”
    She was in full riding kit that day, breeches, boots and a well-tailored coat. One of her curious developments had been that she had become a good horsewoman, first here at Sunset when we still kept our own horses, and later after her divorce, when she had cultivated the hunting set of Long Island.
    “I suppose Ed Smith still has some horses fit to ride,” she said.
    “I ride them,” I told her coolly. But that seemed to amuse her.
    “How hath the mighty fallen!” she said, and laughed.
    I had meant to go out myself, but with the car gone I was helpless. Ed Smith’s riding academy is on the other side of town, not far from the golf course, and too far to walk in boots. Anyway I didn’t want to ride with Juliette. But I was rather resentful when I heard her driving away. I took a swim instead, and although the water was like ice, felt the better for it.
    I had just finished dressing afterwards when Arthur called me from New York, and his voice sounded tired and strained.
    “Is she there, Marcia?”
    “She’s out riding.”
    “What’s it all about, anyhow? I can’t raise that money. She knows damned well I can’t.”
    “I’ve told her that, but she’s pretty insistent, Arthur. She wants me to sell Sunset.”
    “I’ll see her in hell first.”
    He was quieter after that. He had no idea what trouble she was in, if any. He would be glad to get the damned alimony out of the way, of course. It was bleeding him white. But the whole proposition was absurd. He couldn’t touch the trust fund, and he wouldn’t if he could.
    “That’s for Mary Lou and the boy,” he said with finality.
    He was furious about her presence at Sunset too. It had spoiled Mary Lou’s visit, and Junior’s too, and before he rang off he said that they were taking a cottage at Millbank, a small town on the mainland shore about twenty miles from us, and that as soon as Juliette had gone Mary Lou would come to Sunset.
    “When is she going?” he asked.
    “I haven’t any idea. She looks settled for life.”
    “Well, don’t be a fool” were his parting words. “Get her out of there as soon as you can. She’s poison.”
    He hung up, and I was certain that I heard another receiver stealthily replaced