With her mind full of these thoughts, she had very little sympathy to bestow upon Mrs. Tadman, whose fragmentary lamentations only worried her, like the murmurs of some troublesome not-to-be-pacified child; whereby that doleful person, finding her soul growing heavier and heavier, for lack of counsel or consolation, could at last endure this state of suspense no longer in sheer inactivity, but was fain to bestir herself somehow, if even in the most useless manner.  She got up from her seat therefore, went over to the door, and, softly opening it, peered out into the darkness beyond.

There was nothing, no glimmer of Stephen’s candle, no sound of men’s footsteps or of men’s voices; the merest blankness, and no more.  The two men had been away from the parlour something more than half an hour by this time.

For about five minutes Mrs. Tadman stood at the open door, peering out and listening, and still without result.  Then, with a shrill sudden sound through the long empty passages, there came a shriek, a prolonged piercing cry of terror or of pain, which turned Mrs. Tadman’s blood to ice, and brought Ellen to her side, pale and breathless.

“What was that?”

“What was that?”

Both uttered the same question simultaneously, looking at each other aghast, and then both fled in the direction from which that shrill cry had come.

A woman’s voice surely; no masculine cry ever sounded with such piercing treble.

They hurried off to discover the meaning of this startling sound, but were neither of them very clear as to whence it had come.  From the upper story no doubt, but in that rambling habitation there was so much scope for uncertainty.  They ran together, up the staircase most used, to the corridor from which the principal rooms opened.  Before they could reach the top of the stairs, they heard a scuffling hurrying sound of heavy footsteps on the floor above them, and on the landing met Mr. Whitelaw and his unknown friend; face to face.

“What’s the matter?” asked the farmer sharply, looking angrily at the two scared faces.

“That’s just what we want to know,” his wife answered.  “Who was it that screamed just now?  Who’s been hurt?”

“My friend stumbled against a step in the passage yonder, and knocked his shin.  He cried out a bit louder than he need have done, if that’s what you mean, but not loud enough to cause all this fuss.  Get downstairs again, you two, and keep quiet.  I’ve no patience with such nonsense; coming flying upstairs as if you’d both gone mad.”

“It was not your friend’s voice we heard,” Ellen answered resolutely; “it was a woman’s cry.  You must have heard it surely, Stephen Whitelaw.”

“I heard nothing but what I tell you,” the farmer muttered sulkily.  “Get downstairs, can’t you?”

“Not till I know what’s the matter,” his wife said, undismayed by his anger.  “Give me your light, and let me go and see.”