Suddenly rising from before the hearth of smouldering embers, where she had been crouching with her hands clasped over her knees, she crossed the room, unlocked the door, and listened.
Every breath of wind had ceased with the decline of day, but the rain had resumed the steady dripping of the night before.

Grace might have stood there five minutes when she fancied she heard that old sound, a cough, at no great distance; and it was presently repeated.

If it were Winterborne's, he must be near her; why, then, had he not visited her?
A horrid misgiving that he could not visit her took possession of Grace, and she looked up anxiously for the lantern, which was hanging above her head.

To light it and go in the direction of the sound would be the obvious way to solve the dread problem; but the conditions made her hesitate, and in a moment a cold sweat pervaded her at further sounds from the same quarter.
They were low mutterings; at first like persons in conversation, but gradually resolving themselves into varieties of one voice.

It was an endless monologue, like that we sometimes hear from inanimate nature in deep secret places where water flows, or where ivy leaves flap against stones; but by degrees she was convinced that the voice was Winterborne's.