as I waited for something to happen, I hardly knew what, myself.
"Should we hear his death scream?" I wondered.
I really think that was the longest forty-seven minutes of my life.
The maid returned to remove the cups, and I imagined that Miss Nanson would be curious about my unusually long stay, and then, just as the girl got to the door with the tray it happened.
It was a scream.
It came suddenly, out of the silence of the big house, a horrid, dreadful sound of mortal, hopeless fear, so horrid as to give even me that feeling that one's blood is freezing in one's body. Then it died away for a moment only, and recurred with a change of note—a deeper, more despairing and terrifying screech than before, which only a man facing immediate death could utter; a long-drawn-out last hopeless call, ending in a choking, gurgling bubble—and then—silence.
"What is it? What has happened? Oh, doctor, what is it?" whispered Miss Nanson, as she half tottered towards me. "Is it in the house? W-w-was it father?"
The maid still remained motionless by the
