The door closed gently behind him. It was closed as a bland doctor closes a door.
Mary lay still as death.
The room was perfectly silent, save for the fall of a red coal in the fire or the tiny hiss and spurt of escaping gas in thin pencils of old gold and amethyst.
Then there came a loud sound into the room.
It was a steady rhythmic sound, muffled but alarming. It seemed to fill the room.
In a second or two more Mary knew that it was only her heart beating.
"But I am frightened," she said to herself. "I am really frightened. This is FEAR!"
And Fear it was, such as this clear soul had not known. This daughter of good descent, with serene, temperate mind and body, had ever been high poised above gross and elemental fear.
To her, as to the royal nature of her friend Julia Daly, God had early given a soul-guard of angels.
Now, for the first time in her life, Mary knew Fear. And she knew an unnameable disgust also. Her heart drummed. The back of her throat grew hot—hotter than her fever made it. And, worse, a thousand times more chilling and dreadful, she felt as if she had just been holding something cold and evil in her arms.