And still no one came. The door remained steadfastly closed. Outside the porch, the earth had recovered from the recent disaster, and we could hear the exquisitely gentle murmur of the rain.
“Damned odd,” commented Jervaise. “That cursed dog made enough noise to wake the dead.”
I was inspired to go out and search the window where burned the indigent, just perceptibly, rakish candle.
She was there. She had returned to her eyrie after quelling the racket in the hall, and now she leaned a little forward so that I could see her face.
“Who’s there?” she asked quietly.
Her voice was low and clear as the reed of a flute, but all sounds had the quality of music at that instant of release.
I was nonplussed for the moment. I ought to have taken up the key of high romance. She deserved it. Instead of that I dropped to the awful commonplaces of a man in evening dress and a light overcoat standing in the rain talking to a stranger.
“I came up with Mr. Jervaise, Mr. Frank Jervaise,” I explained. “He—he wants to see you. Shall I tell him you’re there?”
“All serene, I’m here,” whispered the voice of Jervaise at my elbow, and then he cleared his throat and spoke up at the window.
“Rather an upset down at the Hall, Miss Banks; about Brenda,” he said. “Might we come in a minute?”