e keen ears of fear. Not a wagon nor a taxi any longer
moved in the street; no step passed; the house was silent.

But after a long ten minutes the darkness seemed to become pregnant with
a sound, a steady murmur. It was as if it came from far away, as if a
brook had spurted out of the granite of Manhattan, and was even more
like a dream-sound than those words which still buzzed in Winifred's
ear. Somehow that murmur as of water in the night made Winifred think of
a face, one which, as far as she could remember, she had never
consciously seen--a man's face, brown, hard, and menacing, which had
looked once into her eyes in some state of semi-conscious being, and
then had vanished. And now this question arose in her mind: was it not
that face, hard and brown, which she had never seen, and yet once had
seen--were not those the cruel lips which somewhere had whispered: "She
is the image of her mother?"

Winifred, sitting up in bed, listened to the steady, dull murmuring a
long time, till there came a moment when she said definitely: "It is in
the house."

For, as her ears grew accustomed to its tone, it seemed to lose some of
its remoteness, to become more local and earthly. Presently this sound
which the darkness was giving out became the voices of people talking in
subdued undertones not far off. Nor was it long before the murmur was
broken by a word sharply uttered and clearly heard by her--a gruff and
unmistakable oath. She started with fright at this, it sounded so near.
She was certain now that there were others in the house with her. She
had gone to bed alone. Waking up in the dead of the small hours to find
men or ghosts with her, her heart beat horribly.

But ghosts do not swear--at least such was Winifred's ideal of the
spirit world. And she was brave. Nerving herself for the ordeal, she
found the courage to steal out of bed and make her way out of the room
into a passage, and she had not stood there listening two minutes when
she was able to be certain that the murmur was going on in a back room.

How earnest that talk was--how low in pitch! It could hardly be burglars
there, for burglars do not enter a house in order to lay their heads
together in long conferences. It could not be ghosts, for a light came
out under the rim of the door.

After a time Winifred stole forward, tapped on a panel, and her heart
jumped into her mouth as she lifted her voice, saying:

"Aunty, is it you?"

There was silence at t