The door swung a few inches, then resisted. Something soft and heavy, like a mattress, seemed to be braced against the bottom of it. I felt for the revolver in my pocket, then put my weight against the panel. The thing inside moved a little, then rolled over with a thud, and the door swung wide. What had lain against it, and now lay across the opening clearly visible in the light from behind us was the body of a woman with blood soaking into her hair.
CHAPTER IX
HOW WE ESCAPED FROM WHAT WE FOUND THERE
We stood looking down upon her without speech. She was a tall, rather thin woman of about fifty; Irish by the look of her, and still with some share of earlier good looks. The hair that fell away loosely from her broad forehead was black and straight, showing only here and there a thread of silver. The large hands lay limply open, and the face was deathly white. She had fallen away from the door with her knees pressed closely against it, as though she had been trying to open it when the blow came.
"Do you think she is dead?" Lady breathed at last.
"Of course not," I answered, but I was very much afraid. I knelt down beside her and listened to her heart. I was not sure, but it seemed to me that it beat faintly; so faintly that it might have been only the drumming of my own pulses in my ears.
"Can you find a mirror?" I asked from the floor.
Lady glanced vaguely about the room, then came back to me with uncomprehending eyes. "No, I can't see any. What for?" she said dully.
I sprang quickly to my feet. A chair lay overturned on the bare white boards of the floor, and I picked it up, setting it near the window.