No, indeed! He is a perfect pest to us--for ever pulling us out of our beds, and setting us to watch, and then telling us that we need not have come after all! Nevertheless, since we _are_ here, we may as well do something. There! She is screaming again! Anyway, we could not help coming, could we? No; he gave us no choice in the matter. Yet surely you have had enough watching by now? Oh, I just sit quiet and wait--sit quiet and wait. What a patient old lady you are, to be sure! [_The Old Women chuckle again, and the screams grow louder._] How dreadful those screams sound! What agony she must be in! Do you know what that agony is like? It is like having one's entrails torn out. Oh, we have all been through it in our time. Yes, but I doubt whether _she_ has before. Listen to that voice of hers! One would hardly know it to be hers at all. It used to be such a sweet and gentle one. Well, 'tis more like the howl of a wild beast now. Besides, it has a sort of a night sound in it. Yes. It puts me in mind of great, dark, lonely forests, and of utter solitude and desolation. Yes; and of despair and a broken heart. But is there no one in the room with her? Why is it we hear no voices but hers--no voices but that terrible, yelling, shrieking voice of hers? Oh, there are people in the room with her, only we do not seem to remark their voices when she is screaming. Have you never noticed that a scream always appears to stand out from other sounds? No matter how many persons there be talking and chattering together, let but a scream be uttered, and the whole world seems to be struck silent and listening to it. Yes, once I heard a man cry out as he was being run over by a wagon. The street was full of people at the time, yet at the moment he might have been the only one in it. But this is a stranger sound than any _man_ could utter. Perhaps it is a trifle more _shrill_. No, no, it is more prolonged. Perhaps you are right. It is a stranger sound than any man could utter. Besides, it has the ring of death in it. Well? Was there not a ring of death in that man's cry as well? He died, didn't he? Yes, yes; but never mind. We need not quarrel about it. [_For a moment there is silence. Then the screams begin again._] What a strange thing is a scream! If it is you yourself who are screaming you never notice how horrible the screams sound: but if it is some one else------ What throat can possibly produce such a noise as she is making? Surely it cannot be a woman's throat? No, no; I cannot believe it! The cries sound as though her neck were being twisted round and round. Or as though the cries were coming from some deep hollow in her chest. Now they are more like the gasps of a drowning man. Listen to the choking noise she is making! It sounds as though some heavy person were kneeling on her chest. Or as though she were being strangled. [_The screams suddenly cease._]