He placed the lamp on the floor, and knocked hesitatingly on the dark panel of the closed door, then again more loudly, but there was no reply.  Far beneath them they could hear the solemn roar of the sea dashing against the cliffs, but there was no sound in the closed chamber.  Its stillness and hush seemed intensified by the clamour of the sea, as though calamity were brooding in the darkness within.

“Robert, Robert!” The high pitch of Mrs. Pendleton’s voice shattered the quietude like the startling clang of an unexpected bell.  “Knock again, Thalassa, more loudly, very loudly,” she cried, in the shrill accents of tightened nerves.

Thalassa approached the door again, but recoiled swiftly.  “God A’mighty!” he hoarsely exclaimed, pointing, “what’s that?”

They followed the direction of his finger to the floor, and saw a sluggish thin dark trickle making its way underneath the door.  Mr. Pendleton stooped and examined it, but rose immediately.

“There’s been trouble in there,” he said, with a pale face.

“How could anybody get in?” said Thalassa sullenly.  “The door is locked from the inside, and it’s two hundred feet from the windows to the bottom of the cliffs.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake stop talking and do something,” cried Mrs. Pendleton hysterically.  “My poor brother may be dying.”  She rattled the door-handle.  “Robert, Robert, what is the matter?  Let me in.  It is I—­Constance.”

“We must break in the door,” said Dr. Ravenshaw.  “Stand away, Mrs. Pendleton, please.  Now, Thalassa, both together.”

The doctor and the servant put their shoulders to the door.  Mr. Pendleton watched them with a white face, but did not go to their assistance.  At the fourth effort there was a sound of splintering wood, the lock gave, and the door swung back.

They peered in.  At first they could see nothing.  The light of the swinging-lamp had been lowered, and the interior of the room was veiled in shadow.  Then their eyes detected a dark outline on the floor between the table and the window—­the figure of a man, lying athwart the carpet with arms outstretched, face downwards, the spread finger-tips clutching at some heavy dark object between the head and the arms.

Thalassa stepped across the threshold, and with shaking hand turned up the lowered wick of the swinging lamp.  The light revealed the stark form of Robert Turold.  At this sight Mrs. Pendleton broke into a loud cry and essayed to cross the room to her brother’s side.

“Keep back, Mrs. Pendleton!” cried Dr. Ravenshaw, interposing himself in front of her.  “I begged of you not to come upstairs.  Mr. Pendleton, take your wife away at once.”

But Mr. Pendleton’s timorous and inferior mind was incapable of translating the command into action.  He could only stare dumbly before him.

“No, no!  Let me stay, I will be calm,” Mrs. Pendleton pleaded.  “Is—­is he dead, doctor?”