"Listen!" said Miss Ethel in an odd tone. "Don't you hear them? They are working overtime."
Mrs. Bradford took her paper up irritably. "Goodness! Is that all." She also listened, then added: "What nonsense you talk, Ethel! There is not a sound. They have stopped work for the night."
Miss Ethel walked to the window where the grey air clung to the glass and stood there a moment, listening intently. It was true. She could hear nothing.
But as soon as she sat down by the fire and was not thinking, it began again—knock, knock, knock.…
"They are there still," she said. "They must be."
"I tell you they are not," said Mrs. Bradford. "You have simply got the noise on your nerves. If you don't take care, you will be really ill. You think about the noise morning, noon and night, until you fancy you hear it."
"I'm not a fool," said Miss Ethel. "Surely I know whether I hear a noise or not."
"I don't know about that," said Mrs. Bradford. "I saw a case in the paper of a man who fancied he heard a drum beating when there was nothing at all, really."
"But I'm not 'a case,'" said Miss Ethel, tartly, pressing her hand to her forehead. "And I'm going to see if the men really have left or not."
Mrs. Bradford glanced out of the window. "Well, you must want something to do," she said. "You might just hand me that sheet you were reading, as you go out."