She was standing in the corridor out of which her own room opened, leaning idly against the balusters here surrounding a sort of gallery overlooking the inner hall below, admiring the charming effects of the morning sunshine creeping in at the capriciously placed windows of this part of the house, lighting up the brasses of the great “dog fireplace,” and flecking the well-worn crimson carpet of the shallow-stepped staircase—a perfect picture of somewhat slumbrous peacefulness. All at once, through the morning quiet and stillness, re-echoing up and down from no direction that she could at once define, came a piercing scream—a scream so utterly at variance with everything around, that the startling terror of it was doubled in intensity.
Hertha looked about her, horror-stricken. Then realising that the sound had entirely died away, she began to collect herself a little, to hope that it was some trick or folly among the servants, and she was hurrying to the stairs, when again broke out the cry; this time, however, accompanied by wild confused words and the sound of hurrying footsteps. They were hurrying towards her, and in another moment Miss Norreys recognised the voice as Celia’s.
“Oh, come, come quickly,” she was calling. “She is dead! I am sure she is dead!”
“Celia,” said Hertha, as the girl came flying along wildly, “what is the matter?”
For all answer Celia caught her by the arm and dragged her backwards again—across the hall, for by this time Hertha had got to the foot of the staircase—down a side passage to a door leading out to the grounds. And there, just below the few steps leading from the terrace, for even here there were terraces to descend from as in the front, lay the cause of Celia’s agonised screams.
It was Winifred, white and unconscious, very, very white, with the half-closed, unseeing eyes, that make the dearest and best known face look strange and dreadful.
“Is she dead?” gasped Celia, who was almost as white as her sister.
Hertha had stooped down beside poor Winifred, bending very closely over her.
“Dead!” she repeated, looking up, “of course not. My dear Celia, you must have more self-control.”
The rather cold, seemingly unsympathising words brought the young girl more quickly to herself than anything else could have done, which was Hertha’s intention, though, in truth, at the first moment she had been nearly as terrified as Celia.