They were footsteps,--the heavy, measured tread of some man.

They were in the room that had been her father's bedroom, and at first they seemed perfectly natural and right; they seemed to be her dad's footsteps, and she wondered mildly what he was doing, up at that time of night.
The footsteps passed from there into the kitchen and stopped in the corner where stood the old-fashioned cupboard with perforated tin panels in the doors and at the sides, and the little drawers at the top,--the kind that old people call a "safe." She heard a drawer pulled out.

Without giving any conscious thought to it, she knew which drawer it was; it was the one next the wall,--the one that did not pull out straight, and so had to be jerked out.

What was her dad...?
Jean thrilled then with a tremor of fear.

She had wakened fully enough to remember.