Quiet for some minutes, and that was grateful to my spirit, for then my fears began to go down; and fears are worse than pains--oh, much worse.

Then came a sound that froze me.

They were calling me--calling me by name--hunting for me! It was muffled by distance, but that could not take the terror out of it, and it was the most dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard.

It went all about, everywhere, down there: along the halls, through all the rooms, in both stories, and in the basement and the cellar; then outside, and farther and farther away--then back, and all about the house again, and I thought it would never, never stop.

But at last it did, hours and hours after the vague twilight of the garret had long ago been blotted out by black darkness.
Then in that blessed stillness my terrors fell little by little away, and I was at peace and slept.