With a loud cry of “What is it? What’s the matter?” Jean, in the pitch darkness, sat up in her narrow pallet bed, and listened.
For a moment or two she didn’t know where she was, and fear clutched at her heart. And then, though memory soon came back, it was accompanied by icy waves of terror, and it was with a trembling hand that she lit a candle.
It was now quite still and quiet up there under the roof of the huge old house. Then, all at once, the sounds that had awakened her began again. The sound of a loud, discordant voice—or was it two voices?—that seemed terrifyingly near.
Clasping her hands together nervously, Jean listened intently. It was a high-pitched voice—only one voice after all—uttering quick, eager, argumentative words, of which she could not catch the sense.
The candle
