“At last I took my courage a deux mains, and turning the handle as softly as I could, I opened the door a tiny bit.  It was quite dark within; I could just see the outline of the windows.  But in the darkness the sound of breathing, becoming more distinct, was appalling.  As I listened, this continued; but there was no other sound.  I pushed the door open all at once.  I was afraid to open it slowly; I felt as if there might be some dreadful thing behind it ready to pounce out on me!  Then I switched on the electric light, and stepped into the room.  I looked first at the bed.  The sheets were all crumpled up, so that I knew Father had been in bed; but there was a great dark red patch in the centre of the bed, and spreading to the edge of it, that made my heart stand still.  As I was gazing at it the sound of the breathing came across the room, and my eyes followed to it.  There was Father on his right side with the other arm under him, just as if his dead body had been thrown there all in a heap.  The track of blood went across the room up to the bed, and there was a pool all around him which looked terribly red and glittering as I bent over to examine him.  The place where he lay was right in front of the big safe.  He was in his pyjamas.  The left sleeve was torn, showing his bare arm, and stretched out toward the safe.  It looked—­oh! so terrible, patched all with blood, and with the flesh torn or cut all around a gold chain bangle on his wrist.  I did not know he wore such a thing, and it seemed to give me a new shock of surprise.”

She paused a moment; and as I wished to relieve her by a moment’s divergence of thought, I said: 

“Oh, that need not surprise you.  You will see the most unlikely men wearing bangles.  I have seen a judge condemn a man to death, and the wrist of the hand he held up had a gold bangle.”  She did not seem to heed much the words or the idea; the pause, however, relieved her somewhat, and she went on in a steadier voice: 

“I did not lose a moment in summoning aid, for I feared he might bleed to death.  I rang the bell, and then went out and called for help as loudly as I could.  In what must have been a very short time—­though it seemed an incredibly long one to me—­some of the servants came running up; and then others, till the room seemed full of staring eyes, and dishevelled hair, and night clothes of all sorts.

“We lifted Father on a sofa; and the housekeeper, Mrs. Grant, who seemed to have her wits about her more than any of us, began to look where the flow of blood came from.  In a few seconds it became apparent that it came from the arm which was bare.  There was a deep wound—­not clean-cut as with a knife, but like a jagged rent or tear—­close to the wrist, which seemed to have cut into the vein.  Mrs. Grant tied a handkerchief round the cut, and screwed it up tight with a silver paper-cutter; and the flow of blood seemed to be checked at once.