In front of her, walking in, the same direction, was a man, pacing the pavement with an even, thudding foot-fall. The gun over his shoulder proclaimed him a soldier, and having already heard tales of householders stopped on their own doorsteps and not allowed to enter, she curbed her eager speed and slunk furtively behind him, skirting the fence. Through the trees she could see the lawn, lighted up as if by fireworks, and then the two chairs--empty--the eiderdown lying crumpled on the grass. In the shade of branches that hung over the sidewalk, she scaled the fence and flew, her feet noiseless on the turf. She passed the empty chairs, and sent a searching glance up toward the windows, all unshuttered, the glass gone from the sashes. Were they in there? Had Aunt Ellen dared to enter? Had Fong overcome her terrors and forced her to take shelter? If he had she would be no farther than the hall. Like a shadow she mounted the steps and stole in, the front door yawning on darkness. The stillness of complete desolation and abandonment met her ears. She stood motionless, looking down the hall's shattered length and up the stairs. The noises from without, the continuous, dragging shuffle of passing feet, calls, crying of children, the soldier's directing voice, came sharply through the larger, encircling sounds of the city fighting for its life. They flowed round the house like a tide, leaving it isolated in the silence of a place doomed and deserted. She suddenly felt herself alone, bereft of human companionship, a lost particle in a world terribly strange, echoing with an ominous, hollow emptiness. A length of plaster fell with a dry thud, calling out small whisperings and cracklings from the hall's darkened depths. It roused her and she turned, pushed open the door and went into the drawing-room. The long side windows let in the glare, a fierce illumination showing a vista of demolishment. Through broken bits of mortar the parquet reflected it; it struck rich gleams from the fragments of a mirror, ran up the walls, playing on the gilt of picture frames. She moved forward, trying to think they might be there, that someone might flit ghost-like toward her through that eerie barring of shadow and ruddy light. But the place was a dry, dead shell; no pulse of life seemed ever to have beaten within those ravaged walls. She summoned her energies to call, send out her voice in a cry for them, then stood--the quavering sound unuttered--hearing a step outside.