“Hush up,” said Martha. “I heard a noise and I thought it was burglars.”
“And you went downstairs!” exclaimed Hannah. “Why, what foolishness! They might ’a’ shot you!”
“There wasn’t any,” Martha explained. “It was Mrs Varian, poking about in her safe.”
“The pore leddy,” said Hannah, sympathetically; “she can’t sleep at all, at all. The nurse tells me she lies awake nearly all night and only gets forty winks in the morning after sun-up.”
“Well, she was a bit upset at my coming in,” said Martha. “I wouldn’t ’a’ gone, only I thought it was my duty.”
“Oh, you and your duty!” growled the cook. “I’m thinkin’ your duty is to keep quiet and let me get a bit of sleep myself. I can’t do without it as you and the missus can!”
Hannah grunted as she turned over and promptly went to sleep again, while Martha, who was both imaginative and curious of mind, lay awake, wondering what fearful things had happened or would happen to this strange house.
The girl was of a fearless nature, but deeply interested in the mysterious, and had more than once made investigations herself in an effort to find some secret passage such as the family were continually discussing.
But she had found nothing, and now, still unable to sleep, she occupied her mind in trying to form some new theory of the tragedies of Headland House.
Hannah awakened in the morning by reason of the alarm sounding from her bedroom clock.