On the dead stillness which reigned both within and without the house there suddenly rang out a shot. At the same moment, if not indeed before, her whole being seemed to be bracing itself up to endure a great ordeal. It was as if her spirit, vanquishing a base, secret, physical terror of the unknown, was about to engage on a great adventure.
With a stifled cry she sat up, and then she realised, with a gasp of relief, that she had been dreaming, only dreaming—but her heart went on beating for a long time with the excitement, the mingled terror and exaltation of spirit, she had just gone through.
At last, feeling curiously languid and shaken, she went downstairs, and had tea in the drawing-room.
It was only a little after five; probably Oliver would not come in till just before it was time to dress for dinner.
The stillness of the house oppressed her. She got up, and moved restlessly about the room. The curtains had been drawn and the fire made up while she had been upstairs. She went across to one of the windows, and, behind the closed curtains, opened it widely. And as she opened the window, and stood by it, breathing in the cold, moist air, she heard the sound of branches being pushed aside across a little-used path which was even a shorter cut to The Chase than was the beech-wood avenue.
Then Oliver was coming home earlier than Laura had thought he would?
She stepped out quickly into the open air, on to the flagged path.
She could hear quick footsteps now—but they were not Oliver's footsteps. It was probably a maid coming back from the village which lay beyond The Chase. But even so there crept a slight feeling of anxiety over her heart. "Who's there?" she called out.
Close out of the twilit darkness there came the instant hoarse answer: "It's Laura, Aunt Letty."
"Laura? Oh, my dear, you'll catch cold!" for Laura, without hat or cloak, was now there, before her.