or the sound that snatched me to my feet. It was
not shrill, it was not loud. What might have ended in a shriek subsided
to a choked breath, a gurgle. My heart's pounding seemed louder as I
listened. My ears expected a following cry, but it did not come. Two or
three doors gently opened, that was all. Again dead silence fell; and I
felt in it that others listened, fearing to speak lest the sound had
been no more than a moan in a dream. Presently the doors closed again,
each listener afraid of disturbing a neighbour. And even I, who knew the
secret behind the silence, prayed that the choked scream might have come
when it did as a mere coincidence. Someone might really have had
nightmare!

As time passed, I almost persuaded myself that it was so, and that, at
worst, there would be no crime to mark this night with crimson on the
calendar. But the next quarter hour was the _deadest_ time I'd ever
known. I felt like one entombed alive, praying to be liberated from a
vault. Then, at last--when those who'd waked slept again--came a faint
knock at my door.

I flew to slip back the bolt, and pulled Roger Fane into the room. One
would not have believed a face so brown could bleach so white!

For an instant we stared into each other's eyes. When I could speak, I
stammered a question--I don't know what, and I don't think he
understood. But the spell broke.

"You _heard_?" he faltered.

"The cry? Yes. It was----"

"She's dead."

"_Dead!_ You killed her?"

"My God, no! But if you think that, what will--_others_ think?"

"If you had killed her, you couldn't be blamed," I tried to encourage
him. "Only----"

"Didn't she make some threat to you? I hoped she had. She told me----"

"Yes, there was something--I hardly remember what. It was like
drunkenness. She said--I think--that if you wouldn't take her back,
you'd be arrested--as her murderer."

"That was it--her ultimatum. She must have been mad. I offered a big
allowance, if she'd go away and not make a scandal. I'd have to give up
Shelagh, of course, but I wanted to save my poor little love from
gossip. That devil would have no compromise. It should be all or
nothing. I must swear to acknowledge her as my wife on board this
yacht--to-morrow morning--before Shelagh--before you all. If I wouldn't
promise that, she'd kill herself at once, in a way to throw the guilt on
me. She'd do it so that I couldn't clear myself or be cleared. I
wouldn't promise, of course. I hoped, a