“You needn’t be frightened.  In an hour or a half-hour he will be the same as ever.  My aunt has such attacks.  They call it catalepsy.”

III

BELA THE REDOUBTABLE

CATALEPSY!

A dread word to the ignorant.

Imperceptibly the crowd dwindled; the most discreet among them quite content to leave the house; others, with their curiosity inflamed anew, to poke about and peer into corners and curtained recesses while the opportunity remained theirs and the man of whom they stood in fear sat lapsed in helpless unconsciousness.  A few, and these the most thoughtful, devoted all their energies to a serious quest for the woman and child whom they continued to believe to be in hiding somewhere inside the walls she had so audaciously entered.

Among these was Miss Weeks whose importance none felt more than herself, and it was at her insistence and under her advice (for she only, of all who remained, had ever had a previous acquaintance with the house) that the small party decided to start their search by a hasty inspection of the front hall.  As this could not be reached from the room where its owner’s motionless figure sat at its grim watch, they were sidling hastily out, with eyes still turned back in awful fascination upon those other eyes which seemed to follow all their movements and yet gave no token of life, when a shout and scramble in the passages beyond cut short their intent and held them panting and eager, each to his place.

“They’ve seen her!  They’ve found her!” ran in quick, whispered suggestion from lip to lip, and some were for rushing to see.

But Miss Weeks’ trim and precise figure blocked the doorway, and she did not move.

“Hark!” she murmured in quick admonishment; “what is that other sound?  Something is happening—­something dreadful.  What is it?  It does not seem to be near here yet, but it is coming—­coming.”

Frightened in spite of themselves, both by her manner and tone, they drew their gaze from the rigid figure in the chair, and, with bated breaths and rapidly paling cheeks, listened to the distant murmur on the far-off road, plainly to be heard pulsing through the nearer sounds of rushing feet and chattering voices in the rooms about.

What was it?  They could not guess, and it was with unbounded relief they pressed forward to greet the shadowy form of a young girl hurrying towards them from the rear, with news in her face.  She spoke quickly and before Miss Weeks could frame her question.

“The woman is gone.  Harry Doane saw her sliding out behind us just after we came in.  She was hiding in some of the corners here, and slipped out by the kitchen-way when we were not looking.  He has gone to see—­”

But interesting as this was, the wonder of the now rapidly increasing hubbub was more so.  A mob was at the gates!  Men, women and children shouting, panting and making loud calls.