She stopped and took breath and came to herself, a little calmed by the neighbourhood of a human habitation in which there must be some inhabitants though she could not hear them. She came to herself more or less, and the pulsations of terror in her ears beat less overwhelmingly, so that she began to be able to think again, and ask herself what she should do. To go to the great door, to wake all the echoes by knocking, to be met by an unconcerned servant and ushered in as if she were an ordinary visitor, all agitated and worn by emotion as she was, was impossible. It seemed more natural, everything being out of rule, to steal round the house till she found the window of the room in which the girls were sitting, and make her little summons to them without those impossible formalities, and be admitted so to their sole company. The lawn came close up under the windows, and Effie crept round one side of the house, finding all dark, with a feeling of discouragement as if she had been repulsed. One large and broad window a little in advance showed, however, against the darkness, and though she knew this could not be a sitting-room, she stole on unconscious of any curiosity or possibility of indiscretion, it being a matter of mere existence to find some one. The curtains were drawn half over the window, yet not so much but that she could see in. And the sight that met the girl’s astonished eyes was one so strange and incomprehensible that it affected her like a vision. Mrs. Dirom was sitting in the middle of the room in a deep easy chair, with her head in her hands, to all appearance weeping bitterly, while a man muffled in a rough loose coat stood with his back to her, opening what seemed the door of a little cupboard in the wall close to the bed. Effie gazed terror-stricken, wondering was it a robber, who was it? Mrs. Dirom was making no resistance; she was only crying, her face buried in her hands. The little door yielded at last, and showed to Effie dimly the shelves of a safe crowded with dark indistinct objects. Then Mrs. Dirom rose up, and taking some of these indistinct objects in her hands suddenly made visible a blaze of diamonds which she seemed to press upon the man. He turned round to the light, as Effie, stooping, half kneeling on the wet grass, gazed in, in a kind of trance, scarcely knowing what she did. The coat in which he was muffled was large and rough, and a big muffler hung loosely round his neck, but to the great astonishment of the young spectator the face was that of Mr. Dirom himself. He seemed to laugh and put away the case in which the diamonds were blazing.