I stood a moment in the passage, keeping very still. I could hear his voice. He seemed in some way indignant. But the sound was dulled by the thickness of the walls and the care with which the chinks of the door had been "made up." Then I also heard--what sent the blood chill to my heart--another voice, shorter, harsher, older. For a moment I was struck dumb, and then--I laughed at myself. Of course the lad was simply stage-struck. For some time he had been reading and declaiming Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and anything he could lay his hands upon, as well as scraps of the Greek tragedies he had learnt at school. But as I leaned nearer, there pierced sharp as a pang to my heart the certainty that the other voice which I heard was not that of any of the characters of _Julius Caesar_. A trembling horror of what I had once seen in that very room, and a memory of the great hearty Richard Poole entering there in all his amplitude of vivid life, quickly arrested me. I rapped and called vehemently, trying the latch and feeling that the door resisted. I could hear a trampling beneath me. Men were on the way to my assistance. At the door I sprang. The bolts were as old as the door, and the nails of the lintel fastening only knocked in after its former rough handling. I got one waft of light as the door opened, half from the candle on the table, half from the moonlight falling dim without. I saw something that crouched--manlike indeed, but with bearded face and head held between its shoulders--leap from the window into the darkness. I did not see Louis clearly. His head was lying on the table, and immediately all the circumstances of the former drama came back to me. But this time I wasted no time. Something glittered on the table, hilt towards me--knife or sword, I hardly knew which. I only knew that with it in my hand I was armed. I sprang through the window and gave chase. Then very loud in my ears I heard the crack of a pistol, but felt no wound. I now think it had not even been fired at me. I pursued with the energy of a young stag. My mornings on the hills with Eben looking for the sheep now stood me in good stead--that is, good or bad according as to whether the man in front of me had another loaded pistol ready or not. Behind me, but alas, too far to be any help, I could hear the shouting of men. Heathknowes was alarmed. Then came the pounding of feet, but I knew that none of them could run with me, while the thing or man in front proved fresher, and, as I feared at first, fleeter. But, after all, I was young, and though I panted, and had a burning pain in my side, I held to it till I began to get my second wind. Then I made sure that, barring accidents, I could run him down. What should happen then I did not know. I had a vision, only for a moment but yet very clear and distinct, of Irma in the black gown of a young widow. But even this did not make me slacken in my stride.