"Cuthbert Grahame, I hear you calling--I am here".
She threw open the dead man's bedroom door.
[CHAPTER XXXV]
JUDGES
In the room was the same faint, luminous glow which had been noticeable in the hall and on the stairs. There could have been no more eloquent testimony of her condition than the fact that she accepted its presence as a matter of course; that it never seemed to occur to her that there was something about it which required elucidation; still less that a few shrewd, well-directed inquiries might result in a very simple explanation. She stood on the threshold, all dishevelled, bent, weeping; always before her eyes the things which she alone could see, stricken with a mad agony of fear by the horror of the sight.
She came a little farther towards the room, staring towards the bed. When she had taken a step or two it seemed as if her legs refused to uphold her any longer. Down she sank on to her knees again; again she covered her face with her hands, as if by such means she could shut off from herself the hideous imaginings of her haunted brain.
"Don't! don't! don't!" she wailed.
While still she remained in that attitude of humility and penitence there came a voice which called her by what had once been her name.
"Isabel Burney!"
That she heard it there could be no doubt. At the sound of it she shivered more than ever. But it may be that she was in doubt whether it was a material voice, or whether it was a fresh manifestation of those too-well remembered tones, which kept calling to her all the time. For it is possible that a disordered mind may be conscious that there is a difference between the real and the imaginary without being capable of satisfactorily perceiving what it is. She did not answer. It came again, not loud, yet distinct and dominating.