The Turn of the Screw

We had been telling ghost stories round the fire on Christmas Eve, in an old country house, which is exactly where such stories belong. The last one had held us well enough. It was about a little boy who woke in the night and saw something dreadful, and whose mother, waking to comfort him, saw the same thing. When it was over, someone remarked that it was the only case he knew of in which such a visit had come to a child.

Douglas said nothing at first. Later in the evening, though, he stood up with his back to the fire and his hands in his pockets.

"I agree that it adds a particular touch when the ghost appears to a child," he said. "But it is not the only case of its charming kind that I know. If one child gives the effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to two children?"