what he wants. He'd like nothing better than headlines in the
papers: `Ray Vilas arrested at the Madison residence'!" She choked
with anger and mortification. "The neighbours----"

"They're nearly all away," whispered Laura. "You needn't fear----"

"Hark!"

The voice stopped singing, and began to mumble incoherently; then
it rose again in a lamentable outcry:

"Oh, God of the fallen, be Thou merciful to me! Be Thou
merciful--merciful--_merciful_" . . .

"MERCIFUL, MERCIFUL, MERCIFUL!" it shrieked, over and over, with
increasing loudness, and to such nerve-racking effect that Cora,
gasping, beat the bedclothes frantically with her hands at each
iteration.

The transom over the door became luminous; some one had lighted
the gas in the upper hall. Both girls jumped from the bed, ran to
the door, and opened it. Their mother, wearing a red wrapper, was
standing at the head of the stairs, which Mr. Madison, in his
night-shirt and slippers, was slowly and heavily descending.

Before he reached the front door, the voice outside ceased its
dreadful plaint with the abrupt anti-climax of a phonograph
stopped in the middle of a record. There was the sound of a
struggle and wrestling, a turmoil in the wet shrubberies, branches
cracking.