Susan lifted her white face to answer. The vacant look it mostly wore was very perceptible now; her tone became dull and monotonous.
"Ma'am," she said, "I think that when Katherine had just got those few things off, somebody came to her door, and--and----"
"And what?" said Mrs. Carlyon, for the girl had stopped.
"I wish I knew what. I wish I could think what; but I can't. Some days I think he must have taken her out of the room, and some days I think he killed her in it. It fairly dazes me, ma'am."
"Whom do you mean by 'he'?" again questioned Mrs. Carlyon, wondering whether the girl had anyone in particular in her mind.
"It must have been some stranger, some wicked man that we don't know--or a woman," answered Susan, slowly. "Miss Winter had gone down then, and was out of hearing."
"But there was no stranger at Heron Dyke that night, either man or woman," objected Mrs. Carlyon. "Only the women-servants, old Aaron, the Squire, and Miss Winter."
"Somebody might have been hid in the house. She'd not go out of the room, ma'am, of her own accord."
"Not unless she had something to go for," said Mrs. Carlyon; "though I do not see what it was likely to be," she slowly added. "Or, if she did go out, why did she not go back again?"
"Ma'am," spoke the landlady, "against that theory there's the fact that she left the candle behind her. Miss Winter found it burnt down to the socket. If she had gone out of the room she would have taken the light with her."