“Yes! yes! as soon as you have gone to bed,” replied Hannah, who was looking almost as frightened as her handmaid. She pushed the girl into her chamber and turned the key on the outside. Whatever was happening in her husband’s room, she would see by herself. She tapped lightly on the door, but no answer proceeded from the bed, only another low half-stifled moan, as though an animal lay dying there. Hannah flew downstairs again and passed out of the front door into the fresh evening air. She was not afraid of Charlotte turning witness against her; she would accept any explanation she chose to give--she was only afraid of encountering those hollow groans again. After half an hour’s suspense, she re-entered the cottage. A violent tapping was proceeding from Charlotte’s door. Hannah went first to inquire why she made such a noise. “O! please, Mum--my lady--’is groans is dreadful! Won’t you give ’im a drop of ile, or a pennorth of peppermint?” “He has locked his door, Charlotte, you know, and I can’t get in. But if he is not quiet soon, I must send for the Doctor!” She conjured her little maid to be easy, and went downstairs in search of a box of carpentering tools. Here she found a crowbar, with which she knew she could force the Professor’s door. She crept up again with it in her hand, and listened attentively. There was not a sound in the room of any kind. “Either it is over,” she thought, “or he is asleep! Ought I to send for assistance, or force the door myself? Should I not be justified in any circumstances in entering the room, considering the groans that have proceeded from it? Charlotte will be my witness to them! And if a stranger went in, and _he_--should--should be still alive--alive enough to give evidence against me--O no! at all risks, _I_ must be the one to see him first, and then I can judge what is best to be done.” She applied the crowbar to the door with her vigorous hand as she thought thus, and the lock gave way before it. For an instant, she hesitated on the threshold--then summoning her courage, dashed in and approached the bed. The Professor was just dying--his eyes were glazed--his hands fallen lifeless by his side. The sight, instead of inspiring pity in Hannah’s breast, roused a demoniacal fury there. Her husband looked at her as though to say “_You have done this_”, and she bent over him and hissed one word into his ear--“_Leonora!_” At the mention of that name, which had been his pride and his shame throughout his life, the Professor gave a final moan and slightly turning over--_died!_ His wife gazed at him for a moment, as if she could not believe the truth--then, with a shudder, she flung the blanket over his staring eyes, and rushed from the room. Her next move was to unlock Charlotte, and order her to dress herself as soon as possible and go to Portland Place to summon the Baron. “To Portland Place, Mum--my lady!” exclaimed the little maid, who had hardly ever walked out by daylight, alone.