“But, Paula, did you let her—?”
“She was too strong for me, or perhaps too quick. She twisted away from me when I tried to prevent her from leaving the room. She almost flew down the hall; I was afraid she would throw herself down the stairs, and I caught up with her just in time. We came down—”
“Did she make any sound?” burst in Pendleton.
“Yes, a wailing sound—if there were any words, I couldn’t distinguish them. Didn’t you hear her? Oh, I was wishing you would. I didn’t dare to cry out, you know, since she was in that dangerous state.”
“We heard, dear,” said Alberta Pendleton. “But the sound kept changing, and we were undecided.”
“She had a definite intention to go out, and out of the front entrance we went whether I would or not. And then, then, while we were far away on the lawn, we saw the—the—I can’t name it.”
“What was it like?” asked Pendleton, and I recall that all of us closed in a little further to hear.
“The head, I suppose you’d call it. It was—awful.”
“What—where?”
“Didn’t any of you see it?” she asked in much surprise, yet not for a second lifting her intent look from Millicent Mertoun’s face. “It was just after that I noticed that foul reek of blood.”