There came to her ear an unmistakable sound like the slamming of a door above her.  A sudden accession in the quality of her fear sent her flying to the passage door to lock it.  Before she could get there the door flew open violently, as though hit by a giant’s hand, and then the wind blew coldly on her face.  The lamp on the kitchen table sent up a straight tongue of flame in the draught, and also went out.  As she stood there with straining eyes a cry rang out overhead, followed in a space immeasurable to the listener in the gulf of blackness, by a shattering sound which seemed to shake the house to its foundations.  Then the external blackness entered her own soul, shrouding her consciousness like the sudden swift fall of a curtain.

CHAPTER VIII

It seemed a long wild journey in the dark, but actually only half an hour passed before the car emerged from the wind and rain of the moors into the dimly-lighted stone street of the churchtown.  A few minutes later the car stopped, and the driver informed Mr. and Mrs. Pendleton in a Cornish drawl that they had reached Dr. Ravenshaw’s.

Husband and wife emerged from the car and discerned a square stone house lying back from the road behind a white fence.  They walked up the path from the gate and rang the bell.

A rugged and freckled servant lass answered the ring, and stared hard at the visitors from a pair of Cornish brown eyes.  On learning their names she conducted them into a small room off the hall and departed to inform the doctor of their arrival.

Dr. Ravenshaw came in immediately.  The quick glance he bestowed upon his visitors expressed surprise, but he merely invited them to be seated and waited for them to explain the object of their late visit.  The room into which they had been shown was his consulting room, furnished in the simplest fashion—­almost shabbily.  There were chairs and table and a couch, a small stand for a pile of magazines, a bookcase containing some medical works, and a sprawling hare’s-foot fern in a large flowerpot by the window.  Mr. Pendleton seated himself near the fern, examining it as though it was a botanical rarity, and left his wife to undertake the conversation.  Mrs. Pendleton was accustomed to take the lead, and immediately commenced—­

“I have taken the liberty of coming to ask your advice about my niece, doctor.  You heard what my brother said this afternoon?”

Dr. Ravenshaw inclined his head without speaking, and waited for her to continue.

“As you are a friend of my brother’s—­”

“Hardly a friend,” he interrupted, with a gesture of dissent.  “Our acquaintance is really too short to warrant that term.”

There was a professional formality about his tone which pulled her up short.  Like all impulsive people she was chilled by a lack of responsiveness.  Her impulse in visiting him had hoped for an interest equalling her own.  She reflected now that she should have remembered that nobody liked being bothered with other people’s affairs.  She recovered her feminine assurance and went on, with a winning smile.