“Far, but I cannot locate it—indeed, I cannot. I forgot it in a moment.”
“But you remember it now?”
“Yes.”
“And cannot you remember now any other noises than those you speak of? That time you stepped into the hall—when your teeth chattered, you know—did you hear nothing then but the sighing of the pines?”
She looked startled. Her hands went up and one of them clutched at her throat, then they fell, and slowly—carefully—like one feeling his way—she answered:
“I had forgotten. I did hear something—a sound in one of the doorways. It was very faint—a sigh—a—a—I don’t know what. It conveyed nothing to me then, and not much now. But you asked, and I have answered.”
“You have done right, Miss Cumberland. The jury ought to know these facts. Was it a human sigh?”
“It wasn’t the sigh of the pines.”
“And you heard it in one of the doorways? Which doorway?”
“The one opposite the room in which I left my sister.”