Ten minutes passed—twenty minutes—and Edith had not returned.
A door slammed, and the younger sister thought she heard something moving again, but the wind began to sob and drowned out all other noises. Between gusts, she heard the portentous sound, and each time it seemed nearer.
Then—she started as she realized that something was coming up the stairs. Once she thought she heard a cry, to which the wind joined its plaintive voice in a weird duet.
Nearer and nearer the strange noise came. It mounted the stairs, step by step, heard only when the wind and rain softened their voices. It passed the first landing, and moved slowly up the second flight, while the girl fearfully awaited its coming.
The wind howled until the house quaked; it shrilled past the eaves and fled across the fields like a hunted ghost.
And now the girl’s pounding pulses drowned out the screaming of the wind, for the presence had invaded her bedroom!
She cowered under the covers, a cold perspiration chilling her body until her teeth chattered. Her imagination conjured up frightful things—a disembodied spirit come to destroy her—a corpse from the grave, gibbering in terror because it could not tear the cerements from its face—the murdered Berkheim girl, with the knife still sheathed in her heart—or some escaped beast, licking its lips in greedy anticipation of the feast her tremulous body would provide. Or was it a murderer, who, having killed her sister, was now bent on completing his bloody work?
A flash of lightning split the sky, and the thunder bellowed its terrifying warning. The girl threw back the bedclothes and shrank to the wall, her eyes starting from their sockets, fearful lest another flash reveal some sight too ghastly to contemplate.
Slowly the being dragged itself across the floor, lifted itself onto the bed, and uttered a choking sound of agony.
The girl sat petrified. Then, timorously, she extended a shaky hand, but quickly withdrew it in dread of some hideous contact.