Somehow or other it seemed to me over-heavy for a clothes' basket; but I said nothing about it at the time, and, telling Betsy I would return in a minute, I went back to my car to turn off the petrol and see that all was shipshape. When I entered the house again, and almost as soon as I had shut the door, the queerest thing I can remember happened to me. It was nothing less than this--that the girl, Betsy, came toward me with her face as white as a sheet; and, before I could utter a single word or ask her the ghost of a question, she just slipped headlong through my arms and lay like a dead thing. Now, this was a nice position to be in and no mistake about it. The girl limp and helpless in my arms, not a soul in the house, me not knowing where to lay hands on a drop of brandy, to say nothing of a glass of water, and, above all, the peculiar feeling that something not over-pleasant must have frightened Betsy, and that it might frighten me before many minutes had passed. Listening intently, I could not at first hear a sound in all the house--but just when I was telling myself not to be a fool, I heard, as plainly as ever I heard anything in my life, a sigh as of some one groaning in pain; and at that I do believe I dropped the girl clean on to the floor and made a dash into the nearest room in a state of mind I should have been ashamed to confess even to my own brother. What did it mean, who was playing tricks with us, and what was the mystery? I looked round the apartment and made it out to be the dining-room, plainly furnished, well lighted, but as empty of people as Westminster Abbey at twelve o'clock of a Sunday night. A smaller room to the right lay in darkness, but I found the switch and satisfied myself in a moment that no one was hidden there; nor did a search in every nook and cranny near by enlighten me further. What was even worse was the fact that I could now hear the groaning very plainly; and when I had stood a minute, with my heart beating like a steam pump and my eyes half blinded with the shadows and the light, I discovered, just in a flash, that whoever groaned was not in any room of the house, neither in the hall nor upon the staircase, but in the very basket I had just laid down and should have carried to the floor above before many minutes had passed.