"Homely," in the sweetest sense of the word, it always was, however. As Hertha went slowly in, crossing the white-panelled entrance hall, and down one or two of the long passages, on a rather roundabout route to her quarters--for she now knew the house well, and felt a fascination in strolling about it--she passed one or two open doors, revealing glimpses of "interiors" which carried her in fancy back by a century or two. There was the still-room as it might have been in the days of the great-great-grandmothers of the present inhabitants; the white-shelved "napery" room with its snowy piles, which one knew by instinct must be lavender-scented; even the girls' own sitting-room, which she passed on one of the first-floor landings, in spite of the very nineteenth-century piano and easel and wealth of books and book-cases, might, at the first rapid glance, have been the legendary tabby-lady's own boudoir, with its lattice-paned windows and polished floor. "It is like no other place in the world," said Hertha to herself for the twentieth time. "I only wish I could give to poor Winifred some of the quite indescribable charm it has for me. I suppose it is just that she has grown up in it; but yet Celia, and even Louise, feel it almost as I do. Well, Winifred may awake in many ways yet. She will probably love her home better when there is no stifled consciousness of self-reproach mixed up with it. How glad I am she gave in before she--or I--knew the contents of Mr Montague's letter. I must answer it at once, by the bye." She was standing in the corridor out of which her own room opened, leaning idly against the balusters here surrounding a sort of gallery overlooking the inner hall below, admiring the charming effects of the morning sunshine creeping in at the capriciously placed windows of this part of the house, lighting up the brasses of the great "dog fireplace," and flecking the well-worn crimson carpet of the shallow-stepped staircase--a perfect picture of somewhat slumbrous peacefulness. All at once, through the morning quiet and stillness, re-echoing up and down from no direction that she could at once define, came a piercing scream--a scream so utterly at variance with everything around, that the startling terror of it was doubled in intensity. Hertha looked about her, horror-stricken. Then realising that the sound had entirely died away, she began to collect herself a little, to hope that it was some trick or folly among the servants, and she was hurrying to the stairs, when again broke out the cry; this time, however, accompanied by wild confused words and the sound of hurrying footsteps. They were hurrying towards her, and in another moment Miss Norreys recognised the voice as Celia's. "Oh, come, come quickly," she was calling. "She is dead! I am sure she is dead!" "Celia," said Hertha, as the girl came flying along wildly, "what _is_ the matter?"