For a moment
it startled even the locksmith; who involuntarily drew back from the
window, and listened.
The wind rumbling in the chimney made it difficult to hear what passed,
but he could tell that the door was opened, that there was the tread of
a man upon the creaking boards, and then a moment's silence--broken by a
suppressed something which was not a shriek, or groan, or cry for help,
and yet might have been either or all three; and the words 'My God!'
uttered in a voice it chilled him to hear.
He rushed out upon the instant. There, at last, was that dreadful
look--the very one he seemed to know so well and yet had never seen
before--upon her face. There she stood, frozen to the ground, gazing
with starting eyes, and livid cheeks, and every feature fixed and
ghastly, upon the man he had encountered in the dark last night. His
eyes met those of the locksmith. It was but a flash, an instant, a
breath upon a polished glass, and he was gone.
The locksmith was upon him--had the skirts of his streaming garment
almost in his grasp--when his arms were tightly clutched, and the widow
flung herself upon the ground before him.
'The other way--the other way,' she cried.
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