“I tore the hangings aside, and rushed into the next room. It was empty. The lamp was burning upon a side table, and the door was open, just as George had left it. In the passage outside all was quiet. I came back into the study and found George running his fingers through his hair in perplexity.
“‘There is clearly one person too many in the house,’ I said. ‘I think we ought to draw the place and find out who it is.’
“‘All right,’ said he, picking up the poker from the fireplace; ‘if it’s anything made of flesh and blood this will be useful, and if not——’
“He stopped short, for at that instant the most awful shriek of horror rang through the house—a shriek of wild, uncontrollable terror, such as I had never heard before and I never hope to hear again. One moment we stood staring at each other, dumbfounded. The next George Carson had dashed out of the room and down the corridor to the stairs. I followed close behind him. For we both knew that none but a woman in mortal fear would shriek like that, and that that woman was Miss Stonor.
“Down the stairs we tumbled pell-mell in the darkness. But before I reached the landing below, where Miss Stonor’s room was, I felt, as I had felt the evening before, something brush swiftly past me. As I ran I turned and caught at it in the dark. But my hand gripped only empty air. I was just about to turn back and follow it, when a cry from George arrested me, and, looking down, I saw him standing over the prostrate form of Miss Stonor. The door of her room was open, and by the moonlight which streamed into the room I could see her lying in her white nightdress across the threshold. What followed in the next few minutes I can scarcely recall with accuracy. The whole house was aroused by the poor girl’s awful shriek. She was quite unconscious when we came upon her, but she revived more or less as soon as Mrs. Carson and one of the terrified servants had lifted her into bed again. Nothing intelligible could be gathered from her, however, as to the cause of her fright; she only repeated, hysterically, again and again:
“‘Oh, the face; the face!’
“When I saw I could do her no further good for the present, I took George by the arm and led him out of the room.
“‘Look here, George,’ I said, ‘we must find out the reason of this at once. I am certain I felt something go by me as I came downstairs. Now does that staircase lead anywhere but to our rooms?’
“George considered for a moment.
“‘Yes,’ he replied; ‘there is a door at the end of the passage which leads up into a sort of lumber room.’