Another ring, and this time an insistent one;—­and still no response.  The officer’s hand was rising for the third time when there came a sound of fluttering from behind the panels against which he had laid his ear, and finally a choked voice uttering unintelligible words.  Then a hand began to struggle with the lock, and the door, slowly opening, disclosed a woman clad in a hastily donned wrapper and giving every evidence of extreme fright.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, seeing only the compassionate faces of her neighbours.  “You heard it, too! a pistol-shot from there—­there—­ my husband’s room.  I have not dared to go—­I—­I—­O, have mercy and see if anything is wrong!  It is so still—­so still, and only a moment ago the baby was crying.  Mrs. Saunders, Mrs. Saunders, why is it so still?”

She had fallen into her neighbour’s arms.  The hand with which she had pointed out a certain door had sunk to her side and she appeared to be on the verge of collapse.

The officer eyed her sternly, while noting her appearance, which was that of a woman hastily risen from bed.

“Where were you?” he asked.  “Not with your husband and child, or you would know what had happened there.”

“I was sleeping down the hall,” she managed to gasp out.  “I’m not well—­I—­Oh, why do you all stand still and do nothing?  My baby’s in there.  Go! go!” and, with sudden energy, she sprang upright, her eyes wide open and burning, her small well featured face white as the linen she sought to hide.

The officer demurred no longer.  In another instant he was trying the door at which she was again pointing.

It was locked.

Glancing back at the woman, now cowering almost to the floor, he pounded at the door and asked the man inside to open.

No answer came back.

With a sharp turn he glanced again at the wife.

“You say that your husband is in this room?”

She nodded, gasping faintly, “And the child!”

He turned back, listened, then beckoned to Mr. Saunders.  “We shall have to break our way in,” said he.  “Put your shoulder well to the door.  Now!”

The hinges of the door creaked; the lock gave way (this special officer weighed two hundred and seventy-five, as he found out, next day), and a prolonged and sweeping crash told the rest.

Mrs. Hammond gave a low cry; and, straining forward from where she crouched in terror on the floor, searched the faces of the two men for some hint of what they saw in the dimly-lighted space beyond.  Something dreadful, something which made Mr. Saunders come rushing back with a shout: 

“Take her away!  Take her to our apartment, Jennie.  She must not see—­”

Not see!  He realized the futility of his words as his gaze fell on the young woman who had risen up at his approach and now stood gazing at him without speech, without movement, but with a glare of terror in her eyes, which gave him his first realization of human misery.