Two large barns stood behind the house; from these he judged that the fields around were farmed.

It was considerations concerning the project of his journey the next day which had made him look out, and also a restless curiosity regarding every detail of the menage whose young mistress was at once so child-like and so queenlike.  While looking out he had what seemed a curious hallucination of a dark figure standing for a moment on the top of the deep snow.  As he looked more steadily the figure disappeared.  All the outlines at which he looked were chaotic to the sight, because of the darkness and the drifting snow, and the light which was behind him shimmering upon the pane.  If half-a-dozen apparitions had passed in the dim and whirling atmosphere of the yards, he would have supposed that they were shadows formed by the beams of his lamp, being interrupted here and there by the eddying snow where the wind whirled it most densely.  He did not close his shutters, he even left his inner window partially open, because, unaccustomed to a stove, he felt oppressed by its heat.  When he threw himself down, he slept deeply, as men sleep after days among snowfields, when a sense of entire security is the lethargic brain’s lullaby.

He was conscious first of a dream in which the sisters experienced some imminent danger; he heard their shrieks piercing the night.  He woke to feel snow and wind driving upon his face, to realise a half-waking impression that a man had passed through his room, to know that the screams of a woman’s voice were a reality.  As he sprang for his clothes he saw that the window was wide open, the whole frame of the outer double glass having been removed, but the screams of terror he heard were within the house.  Opening the door to the dark hall he ran, guided by the sound, to the foot of the staircase which the girls had ascended, then up its long straight ascent.  He took its first steps in a bound, but, as his brain became more perfectly awake, confusion of thought, wonder, a certain timidity because now the screaming had ceased, caused him to slacken his pace.  He was thus hesitating in the darkness when he found himself confronted by Madge King.  She stood majestic in grey woollen gown, candle in hand, and her dark eyes blazed upon him in terror, wrath and indignation.

It seemed for a moment that she could not speak; some movement passed over the white sweep of her throat and the full dimpling lips, and then—­

‘Go down!’ She would have spoken to a dog with the same authority, but never with such contemptuous wrath.  ‘Go down at once!  How dare you!’

Abashed, knowing not what he might have done to offend, Courthope fell back a step against the wall of the staircase.  From within the room Eliz cried, ’Is he there?  Come in and lock the door, Madge, or he’ll kill you!’ The voice, sharp, high with terror, rose at the end, and burst into one of those piercing shrieks which seemed to fill the night, as the voices of some small insects have the power to make the welkin ring in response.