ry cry, every
sob seemed the same as before. I listened almost without any emotion at
all in my own person, thinking of its effect upon Simson. He maintained a
very bold front, on the whole. All that coming and going of the voice
was, if our ears could be trusted, exactly in front of the vacant, blank
door-way, blazing full of light, which caught and shone in the glistening
leaves of the great hollies at a little distance. Not a rabbit could have
crossed the turf without being seen; but there was nothing. After a time,
Simson, with a certain caution and bodily reluctance, as it seemed to me,
went out with his roll of taper into this space. His figure showed
against the holly in full outline. Just at this moment the voice sank, as
was its custom, and seemed to fling itself down at the door. Simson
recoiled violently, as if some one had come up against him, then turned,
and held his taper low, as if examining something. "Do you see anybody?"
I cried in a whisper, feeling the chill of nervous panic steal over me at
this action. "It's nothing but a--confounded juniper-bush," he said. This
I knew very well to be nonsense, for the juniper-bush was on the other
side. He went about after this round and round, poking his taper
everywhere, then returned to me on the inner side of the wall. He scoffed
no longer; his face was contracted and pale. "How long does this go on?"
he whispered to me, like a man who does not wish to interrupt some one
who is speaking. I had become too much perturbed myself to remark whether
the successions and changes of the voice were the same as last night. It
suddenly went out in the air almost as he was speaking, with a soft
reiterated sob dying away. If there had been anything to be seen, I
should have said that the person was at that moment crouching on the
ground close to the door.

We walked home very silent afterwards. It was only when we were in sight
of the house that I said, "What do you think of it?" "I can't tell what
to think of it," he said quickly. He took--though he was a very temperate
man--not the claret I was going to offer him, but some brandy from the
tray, and swallowed it almost undiluted. "Mind you, I don't believe a
word of it," he said, when he had lighted his candle; "but I can't tell
what to think," he turned round to add, when he was half-way upstairs.

All of this, however, did me no good with the solution of my problem. I
was to help this weeping, sobbing thing, which was a