There was nothing but the night. All was silence. And there was nought to be seen out in the darkness. He uttered another wild scream of terror.
Shuddering in every vein, he withdrew his eyes from the window. As he sought the table for support, he almost fell. And then as he reached it, his heart seemed to stop beating. For a voice deep and terrible filled the room, echoing and re-echoing in it, making its spacious gloom resound.
“Simon Heriot!”
He heard his name.
“Simon Heriot!”
The voice of the unseen re-echoed high in the wide chimney-place. The heart of the unhappy wretch was already dead within him.
“Simon Heriot has murdered sleep!”
In a frenzy that seemed to tear his soul in pieces, he pressed his hands to his ears that they might be closed against the sound. But it was in vain. No human agency had the power to shut out those terrible words, or the awful voice that gave them utterance.
“Simon Heriot, if ever you would sleep again, attend that which is said to you.”
With the shred of will that remained to him, the guilty man strung all his faculties in order to heed the words that were spoken.