But I forgot the child and any motive of this kind which I may have had; for when Mrs.Packard did reappear in the hall, there rang up from some place below a laugh, so loud and derisive and of so raucous and threatening a tone that Mrs.Packard reeled with the shock and I myself was surprised in spite of my pride and usual impassibility.

This, had it been all, would not be worth the comment.

But it was not all.

Mrs.Packard did not recover from the shock as I expected her to.

Her fine figure straightened itself, it is true, but only to sink again lower and lower, till she clung crouching to the stair-rail at which she had caught for support, while her eyes, turning slowly in her head, moved till they met mine with that unseeing and glassy stare which speaks of a soul-piercing terror--not fear in any ordinary sense, but terror which lays bare the soul and allows one to see into depths which-- But here my compassion drove me to action.