Wace's manner at
supper that things must be going badly. He quoted the prophets
something terrible, and worked on the kitchen-maid so that she
declared she wouldn't go down alone to put the cold meat in the
ice-box. I felt nervous myself, and after I had put my mistress to
bed I was half-tempted to go down again and persuade Mrs. Blinder to
sit up awhile over a game of cards. But I heard her door closing for
the night, and so I went on to my own room. The rain had begun
again, and the drip, drip, drip seemed to be dropping into my brain.
I lay awake listening to it, and turning over what my friend in town
had said. What puzzled me was that it was always the maids who left...
After a while I slept; but suddenly a loud noise wakened me. My bell
had rung. I sat up, terrified by the unusual sound, which seemed to
go on jangling through the darkness. My hands shook so that I
couldn't find the matches. At length I struck a light and jumped out
of bed. I began to think I must have been dreaming; but I looked at
the bell against the wall, and there was the little hammer still
quivering.
I was just beginning to huddle on my clothes when I heard another
sound. This time it was the door of the locked room opposite mine
softly opening and closing. I heard the sound distinctly, and it
frightened me so that I stood stock still. Then I heard a footstep
hurrying down the passage toward the main house. The floor being
carpeted, the sound was very faint, but I was quite sure it was a
woman's step.
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