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o its resting-place, listening still. Kino kept up a low, ominous growl, quite different from his first barking. Nothing more came. "I'm glad he doesn't waken Miss Axtell," I thought; and gradually Kino dropped his growls into low, plaintive moans, which in time died away. As they did so, another sound, not outside, but in the house, set my poor, weak heart into violent throbbings. Footsteps were in the upper hall, I felt sure. Miss Axtell might not hear them, if she had not heard Kino's louder noise. Slowly they came,--not heavy, with a stout, manly tread, but muffled. They came close to the door. If the key were only in it! But I could not move. I heard a hand going over it, just as I had heard that hand three days before in the dark tower. A moment's awful pour of feeling, and then came the gentlest, softest of knocks. Why did I not get up and see who it was? Simply because Nature made me cowardly, and meant me, therefore, to bear cowardice bravely. I never moved. A second time came the knock, but no more nerve of sound in it than at the first. A hand touched the knob after that, and turning it gently, the door was carefully pushed open, and a figure, looking very much like Mr. Axtell, only the long, dark hair fell over his face, came noiselessly in. I could not tell at the moment who it was. I watched him cautiously. He stood still, looking first at the bed, whose curtains were down, then around the room. For one moment I thought him looking at me, and involuntarily my eyelids closed, lest he might know himself watched. He put up his hand, and pushed back the heavy hair from his forehead. It was only Mr. Axtell. The relief was so great that I spoke,--softly, it is true. "What is it?" I asked. "Is anything wrong, Mr. Axtell?" "It seems not," he said. "Kino's barking aroused me,--it is so unusual. How has she slept?" "Very well. For the last hour she has not spoken." Kino began again his low, dismal howling. "Did not the dog disturb her when he barked?" Mr. Axtell had walked to the lounge from which I had risen, still speaking in the voice that has much of tone without much sound. "No,--she did not seem to hear it." "She must be sleeping very deeply," the brother said; and as he spoke, he cautiously uplifted a fold of the hangings. What was it that came over his face, made visible even in the gloom of the room? Something terrible. "What is it?" I asked, springing up; "what has happened?" and I put
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