He seemed to be about to say something else, but all at once, stopping, he stood at attention. It was she who spoke.

"You heard?"

"Wasn't that someone moving?"

"It was someone in the next room--there's someone in there now--listen!"

"Good gracious!"

There unmistakably was someone--a woman's scream rang out. There still seemed to be another room beyond, or, at any rate, there was another door. The major dashed towards it; this time he was through before the girl had a chance of stopping him.

She was left alone--to listen. And, clinging to the chair, she stood on one foot, and she listened. She never forgot those few moments. There was the dead man behind her; some strange thing had happened where she was; what was taking place in front? Her helplessness rendered her position so much worse than it need have been. She tried to move, but she had done too much of that already; the moment she put her injured foot to the floor a shock went all over her which made her shut her eyes, and the room swam round. She could not even get to a bell to summon assistance if it were needed; all she could do was to stand--and wait.

She was aware that she was in that state of mind and body in which it was quite possible that her imagination might play her tricks. Was it her imagination which made her fancy that such strange things were going on about her; which made her think, as she glanced towards it, that a face had been looking through the open window, which had been quickly withdrawn as she turned her head? The sounds she heard--were none of them real? The footsteps outside the window; the mutterings--surely they were mutterings--was that not someone speaking in whispers? She felt sure that they were footsteps, that someone was speaking. The horror of it--but she was too incapable of movement to make sure.

And then, in the room behind her, where he lay, with the lacquered club beside him, amid the broken furniture--was this another trick her imagination played her? Were those not real movements which she heard; was it only that she fancied that voices were speaking? Again she felt convinced that it was not imagination only; there was something going on which it behoved her to 

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