Surely she could not have heard the fall of footsteps at the back of the house! There was the whole width of the inner room and two closed doors between her and the yard at the back, and the ground there was soft and muddy; no footstep, however firm, could raise echoes there.
And yet she had heard! Of that she felt quite sure, heard with that sixth sense of which she, in her ignorance, knew nothing, but which, nevertheless, now had roused her from that coma-like state into which terror had thrown her, and set every one of her nerves tingling once more and pulsating with life and the power to feel.
For the moment all her faculties seemed merged into that of hearing. With that same sixth sense she heard the stealthy footsteps coming nearer and nearer. They had not approached from the village, but from the fields at the back, and along the little path which led through the unfenced yard straight to the back door.
These footsteps—which seemed like the footsteps of ghosts, so intangible were they—were now so near that to Klara's supersensitive mind they appeared to be less than ten paces from the back door.
Then she heard another footstep—she heard it quite distinctly, even though walls and doors were between her and them—she heard the movement from behind the acacia tree—the one that stands at the corner of the house, in full view of both the doors—she heard the rustle among its low-hanging branches and that hissing sound as of an indrawn breath.
She shot up from her chair like an automaton—rigid and upright, her mouth opened as for a wild shriek, but all power of sound was choked in her throat. She ran into the inner room like one possessed, her mouth still wide open for the frantic shriek which would not come, for that agonizing call for help.
She fell up against the back door. Her hands tore at the lock, at the woodwork, at the plaster around; she bruised her hands and cut her fingers to the bone, but still that call would not come to her throat—not even now, when she heard on the other side of the door, less than five paces from where she lay, frantic with horror, a groan, a smothered cry, a thud—then swiftly hurrying footsteps flying away in the night.
Then nothing more, for she was lying now in a huddled mass, half unconscious on the floor.