224
THE WHISPER ON THE STAIR
In a part of a second he was in black night again, enveloped in it as though he were in bed with his head under the stifling covers. He could not put his hands up to feel of it, but he would not have been surprised to know that his hair was standing on end. He could feel his skin, all prickly, as though a cold blast had struck him.
Then there was a peal of thunder that shook the old house to its very foundations, and as silence succeeded that overwhelming noise, the scream of a woman, wild and shrill, cut through the night like a rapier blade, from somewhere inside the house.
It was a distorted cry drawn from the soul, the cry of a being in terror, in deadly fear.
