“Is that all?”
The puddler recoiled. The group behind him fell back a step.
“Is that all he wants?” Thane asked again.
“That’s what he’s a screaming at us for,” said the puddler, sharply.
Thane went back to Agnes. He had time to tell her before they reached the mansion.
“If he wants it, and you have no will to the contrary, I’ll promise to do it,” he concluded.
“It strikes one with terror,” she said. “If he wants it that’s enough.”
Just as they were admitted they heard the dreadful scream again. The door, closing, seemed to cut it off. Inside there was no sound of it.
The family doctor anxiously received them. He talked rapidly, addressing Agnes in a manner tactfully to include Thane, whom he had never seen before. The two best consulting physicians in Wilkes-Barre were present, he said. There had arrived within the hour also an eminent alienist from Philadelphia. Four men nurses had been provided. Everything possible to be done had been thought of almost at once.
“But what is it?” Agnes asked. “What has happened?”