The third was a very soft gurgle or rattle—­of a strange and abnormal kind—­yet a sound she had heard before at some past period of her life—­when, she could not recollect.  To make it the more disturbing, it seemed to be almost close to her—­either close outside the window, close under the floor, or close above the ceiling.  The accidental fact of its coming so immediately upon the heels of her supposition, told so powerfully upon her excited nerves that she jumped up in the bed.  The same instant, a little dog in some room near, having probably heard the same noise, set up a low whine.  The watch-dog in the yard, hearing the moan of his associate, began to howl loudly and distinctly.  His melancholy notes were taken up directly afterwards by the dogs in the kennel a long way off, in every variety of wail.

One logical thought alone was able to enter her flurried brain.  The little dog that began the whining must have heard the other two sounds even better than herself.  He had taken no notice of them, but he had taken notice of the third.  The third, then, was an unusual sound.

It was not like water, it was not like wind; it was not the night-jar, it was not a clock, nor a rat, nor a person snoring.

She crept under the clothes, and flung her arms tightly round Miss Aldclyffe, as if for protection.  Cytherea perceived that the lady’s late peaceful warmth had given place to a sweat.  At the maiden’s touch, Miss Aldclyffe awoke with a low scream.

She remembered her position instantly.  ‘O such a terrible dream!’ she cried, in a hurried whisper, holding to Cytherea in her turn; ’and your touch was the end of it.  It was dreadful.  Time, with his wings, hour-glass, and scythe, coming nearer and nearer to me —­grinning and mocking:  then he seized me, took a piece of me only . . .  But I can’t tell you.  I can’t bear to think of it.  How those dogs howl!  People say it means death.’

The return of Miss Aldclyffe to consciousness was sufficient to dispel the wild fancies which the loneliness of the night had woven in Cytherea’s mind.  She dismissed the third noise as something which in all likelihood could easily be explained, if trouble were taken to inquire into it:  large houses had all kinds of strange sounds floating about them.  She was ashamed to tell Miss Aldclyffe her terrors.

A silence of five minutes.

‘Are you asleep?’ said Miss Aldclyffe.

‘No,’ said Cytherea, in a long-drawn whisper.

‘How those dogs howl, don’t they?’

‘Yes.  A little dog in the house began it.’

’Ah, yes:  that was Totsy.  He sleeps on the mat outside my father’s bedroom door.  A nervous creature.’

There was a silent interval of nearly half-an-hour.  A clock on the landing struck three.

‘Are you asleep, Miss Aldclyffe?’ whispered Cytherea.

‘No,’ said Miss Aldclyffe.  ’How wretched it is not to be able to sleep, isn’t it?’