She got up from her seat therefore, went over to the door, and, softly opening it, peered out into the darkness beyond.
There was nothing, no glimmer of Stephen's candle, no sound of men's footsteps or of men's voices; the merest blankness, and no more.

The two men had been away from the parlour something more than half an hour by this time.
For about five minutes Mrs.Tadman stood at the open door, peering out and listening, and still without result.

Then, with a shrill sudden sound through the long empty passages, there came a shriek, a prolonged piercing cry of terror or of pain, which turned Mrs.Tadman's blood to ice, and brought Ellen to her side, pale and breathless.
"What was that ?" "What was that ?" Both uttered the same question simultaneously, looking at each other aghast, and then both fled in the direction from which that shrill cry had come.
A woman's voice surely; no masculine cry ever sounded with such piercing treble.
They hurried off to discover the meaning of this startling sound, but were neither of them very clear as to whence it had come.

From the upper story no doubt, but in that rambling habitation there was so much scope for uncertainty.

They ran together, up the staircase most used, to the corridor from which the principal rooms opened.