The shriek was repeated—prolonged and piercing—and was accompanied by a muffled sound of struggling that shook the ceiling overhead.
Instinctively springing from her bed, Clara threw on her dressing-gown and flew to the door; but just as she turned the latch to open it she heard a bolt slipped on the outside and found herself a prisoner in her own chamber.
Appalled, she stood and listened.
Presently there came a sound of footsteps on the stairs and a heavy muffled noise as of some dead weight being dragged down the staircase and along the passage. Then she heard the hall door cautiously opened and shut. And, finally, she distinguished the sound of wheels rolling away from the house.
Unable longer to restrain herself, she rapped and beat upon her own door, crying aloud for deliverance.
Presently the bolt was withdrawn, the door jerked open and Dorcas Knight, with a face of horror, stood before her.
"What is the matter! Who was that screaming? In the name of mercy, what has happened?" cried Clara, shrinking in abhorrence from the ghastly woman.
"Hush! it is nothing! There were two tomcats screaming and fighting in the attic, and they fought all the way downstairs, rolling over and over each other. I've just turned them out," faltered the woman, shivering as with an ague fit.
"What—what was that—that went away in the carriage?" asked Clara shuddering.
"The colonel, gone to meet the early stage at Tip-Top, to take him to Washington. He would have taken leave of you last night, but when he came to your parlor you had left it."