“Light me downstairs to the kitchen,” he said.  “I want to see your wife.”

Thalassa seemed about to say something at that, then thought the better of it, and walked out of the room.  Outside in the passage he picked up a small lamp glimmering in a niche of the wall, and led the way downstairs.  They reached the kitchen in silence, and went in.

The little grey woman at the table was seated in the same posture as Barrant had last seen her, her hands crossed in front of her, her head bent.  She glanced up listlessly as they entered.  Barrant crossed the room, and touched her arm.  She shook in a pitiful little flurry of fear, then became motionless again.

“Mrs. Thalassa, I want to speak to you,” said Barrant, raising his voice, as though to a deaf person.  “Is this where you were sitting the night before last, when you heard the crash in your master’s room upstairs?”

“Put the knave on the rubbish heap,” she muttered without looking up.

“Listen to me, Mrs. Thalassa”—­he spoke still louder.  “Did you hear the shot before the crash?”

The loud tone seemed to reach the remote consciousness of her being, and she started up in another flurry. ...  “Coming, coming, sir.  Jasper, where’s the tray?...” she stood thus for a moment, then dropped back into her chair, her eyes fixed on the opposite wall.

“What’s the matter with her?” said Barrant, turning to her husband.

“She’s been like it ever since it happened,” said Thalassa, in a low tone.  “That’s how I found her when I came from the cellar.”

“Did she hear the shot—­or see anything?”

“That’s more than I can tell you.  When I came from the cellar she seemed mazed with fright, and kept pointing to the ceiling.  All I could make out from her was that there’d been a great crash upstairs.  When I came down again after trying the door she was lying on the floor in a faint, and I carried her in to her bed.  It’s floored her wits.”

“She’s had a very bad shock,” said Barrant gravely.  He regarded her attentively, her vacant eyes, mouthing lips, trembling hands, her uncanny fixed glance which seemed to behold something unseen.  Strange suspicions flowed through his brain as he watched her.  What terrible experience had befallen her?  What did she know of the mysterious events that had happened in that silent house?  He endeavoured to follow the direction of her gaze, but it seemed to be fixed on the row of bells behind the kitchen door.  Then, like a half-awakened sleeper released from the horror of a nightmare, she sank back in her previous listless attitude, and fell to muttering again.

As Barrant watched her, Thalassa watched them both with an anxiety which would have aroused Barrant’s suspicions if he had seen it.  But Thalassa’s face was again closely guarded when he did look up.

“You’ll get neither rhyme nor reason out of her,” said Thalassa, as their glances met.