No, she
would ring the one in the sitting room. She went to it and pressed
the button. She could not hear the ghost of a sound and one could
generally hear SOMETHING like one. She rang again and waited.
The room was getting darker. Oh, how COULD Fraulein Hirsch--how
could she?
She waited--she waited. Fifteen minutes by her little watch--twenty
minutes--and, in their passing, she rang again. She rang the bell
in the library and the one in the bedroom--even the one in the
bathroom, lest some might be out of order. She slowly ceased to be
embarrassed and self-reproachful and began to feel afraid, though
she did not know quite what she was afraid of. She went to one
of the windows to look at her watch again in the vanishing light,
and saw that she had been ringing the bells for an hour. She
automatically put up a hand and leaned against the white frame
of one of the decorative small panes of glass. As she touched it,
she vaguely realized that it was of such a solidity that it felt,
not like wood but iron. She drew her hand away quickly, feeling a
sweep of unexplainable fear--yes, it was FEAR. And why should she
so suddenly feel it? She went back to the door and tried again to
open it--as ineffectively as before. Then she began to feel a
little cold and sick. She returned to the Chesterfield and sat
down on it helplessly.
"It seems as if--I had been locked in!" she broke out, in a faint,
bewildered wail of a whisper.
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