consolation, could at last endure this state of
suspense no longer in sheer inactivity, but was fain to bestir herself
somehow, if even in the most useless manner. She got up from her seat
therefore, went over to the door, and, softly opening it, peered out into
the darkness beyond.

There was nothing, no glimmer of Stephen's candle, no sound of men's
footsteps or of men's voices; the merest blankness, and no more. The two
men had been away from the parlour something more than half an hour by
this time.

For about five minutes Mrs. Tadman stood at the open door, peering out
and listening, and still without result. Then, with a shrill sudden sound
through the long empty passages, there came a shriek, a prolonged
piercing cry of terror or of pain, which turned Mrs. Tadman's blood to
ice, and brought Ellen to her side, pale and breathless.

"What was that?"

"What was that?"

Both uttered the same question simultaneously, looking at each other
aghast, and then both fled in the direction from which that shrill cry
had come.

A woman's voice surely; no masculine cry ever sounded with such piercing
treble.

They hurried off to discover the meaning of this startling sound, but
were neither of them very clear as to whence it had come. From the upper
story no doubt, but in that rambling habitation there was so much scope
for uncertainty. They ran together, up the staircase most used, to the
corridor from which the principal rooms opened. Before they could reach
the top of the stairs, they heard a scuffling hurrying sound of heavy
footsteps on the floor above them, and on the landing met Mr. Whitelaw
and his unknown friend; face to face.

"What's the matter?" asked the farmer sharply, looking angrily at the two
scared faces.

"That's just what we want to know," his wife answered. "Who was it that
screamed just now? Who's been hurt?"

"My friend stumbled against a step in the passage yonder, and knocked his
shin. He cried out a bit louder than he need have done, if that's what
you mean, but not loud enough to cause all this fuss. Get downstairs
again, you two, and keep quiet. I've no patience with such nonsense;
coming flying upstairs as if you'd both gone mad."

"It was not your friend's voice we heard," Ellen answered resolutely; "it
was a woman's cry. You must have heard it surely, Stephen Whitelaw."

"I heard nothing but what I tell you," the farmer muttered sulkily. "Get
downstairs, can't you?"

"Not till I