iated demand for vengeance, but all inferior noises--and
surely all other noises must have been inferior to that clamour--were
absorbed and flattened out of existence. We were in a world occupied by
the bark of a single dog, and any addition to that occupation would have
been superfluous.

The owner of the voice was doing his level best now to get the door down
on his own account. I hoped he might succeed. I should have excuse then to
fly to the woods and claim sanctuary. As it was, I retreated a couple of
steps, holding my breath to ease the pain of my nerves, and some old
instinct of prayer made me lift my face to the sky. I welcomed the cold,
inquisitive touch of the silent rain.

Then I became aware through the torture of prolonged exasperation that my
upturned face was lit from above; that a steady candle was now perched on
the very sill of the one illuminated window; and that behind the candle
the figure of a woman stood looking down at me.

She appeared to be speaking.

I held my hands to my ears and shook my head violently to intimate my
temporary deafness; and the figure disappeared, leaving the placid candle
to watch me as it seemed with a kind of indolent nonchalance.

I decided to pass on the news to Jervaise, and discovered that besotted
fool in a little trellised porch, stimulating the execrations of the Irish
terrier by a subdued inaudible knocking. I was beginning to scream my news
into his ear when silence descended upon us with the suddenness of a
catastrophe. It was as if the heavens had been rent and all the earth had
fallen into a muffled chaos of mute despair.

I had actually began my shriek of announcement when all the world of sound
about us so inexplicably ceased to be, and I shut off instantly on the
word "_Someone_...," a word that as I had uttered it sounded like a
despairing yelp of mortal agony.

Out of the unearthly stillness, Jervaise's voice replied in a frightened
murmur, "Someone coming," he said, as if he, alone, had knowledge of and
responsibility for that supreme event.

And still no one came. The door remained steadfastly closed. Outside the
porch, the earth had recovered from the recent disaster, and we could hear
the exquisitely gentle murmur of the rain.

"Damned odd," commented Jervaise. "That cursed dog made enough noise to
wake the dead."

I was inspired to go out and search the window where burned the indigent,
just perceptibly, rakish candle.

She was there. Sh