Instinctively her emotions chilled; and she lay stiffly in bed, hostile, on guard, defying the charm of the further music.
Suddenly the piano broke off in the very middle of Liszt's Rhapsodic Number Twelve.

The way the music snapped off startled her.

There was something inexplicably ominous about it.

Intuitively she felt that something was happening below.

She wondered what it could be.
An hour passed; she continued wondering; then Matilda entered the attic room, behind her Mr.Pyecroft and Mary.
"Sister"-- such familiarity was difficult to Matilda, even though she knew this familiarity was necessary to maintain the roles circumstances and Mr.Pyecroft had forced upon them--"sister," she quavered, "I thought you might be interested to know that the bell rang awhile ago, and I went down, and there was a man--with a note to me from--from Mrs.De Peyster." "What!" exclaimed Mrs.De Peyster, in an almost natural tone.
"It--it's disturbed us all so much that I thought you might like to look at it.