not be charged with any bad consequences. But all such reflections this
way or that were swallowed up at this point in over-mastering panic. That
her double summons _could_ have been unnoticed--this solitary fact in
one moment made a revelation of horror. One person might have fallen
asleep, but two--but three--_that_ was a mere impossibility. And even
supposing all three together with the baby locked in sleep, still how
unaccountable was this utter--utter silence! Most naturally at this moment
something like hysterical horror overshadowed the poor girl, and now at
last she rang the bell with the violence that belongs to sickening terror.
This done, she paused: self-command enough she still retained, though fast
and fast it was slipping away from her, to bethink herself--that, if any
overwhelming accident _had_ compelled both Marr and his apprentice-boy to
leave the house in order to summon surgical aid from opposite quarters--a
thing barely supposable--still, even in that case Mrs. Marr and her infant
would be left; and some murmuring reply, under any extremity, would be
elicited from the poor mother. To pause, therefore, to impose stern
silence upon herself, so as to leave room for the possible answer to this
final appeal, became a duty of spasmodic effort. Listen, therefore, poor
trembling heart; listen, and for twenty seconds be still as death. Still
as death she was: and during that dreadful stillness, when she hushed her
breath that she might listen, occurred an incident of killing fear, that
to her dying day would never cease to renew its echoes in her ear. She,
Mary, the poor trembling girl, checking and overruling herself by a final
effort, that she might leave full opening for her dear young mistress's
answer to her own last frantic appeal, heard at last and most distinctly a
sound within the house. Yes, now beyond a doubt there is coming an answer
to her summons. What was it? On the stairs, not the stairs that led
downwards to the kitchen, but the stairs that led upwards to the single
story of bed-chambers above, was heard a creaking sound. Next was heard
most distinctly a footfall: one, two, three, four, five stairs were slowly