He heard a gate clash somewhere outside. The sound just detached itself from the murmur of the night. Then a late train ran grinding over the embanked railway behind the house, and drew up with the screaming of brakes at Victoria Park Station, and distracted him again.
"Are you ready, Mr. Kirkby?" said the clergyman, coming in.
Jack stood up, stretching himself. In the middle of the stretch he stopped.
"What's that noise?" he asked.
They stood listening.
Then again came the sharp, prolonged tingle of an electric bell, followed by a battering at a door downstairs.
Jack, looking in the other's face, saw him go ever so slightly pale beneath his eyes.
"There's somebody at the door," said Mr. Parham-Carter. "I'll just go down and see."
And, as Jack stood there, motionless and breathless, he could hear no sound but the thick hammering of his own heart at the base of his throat.