Perhaps one of the women had stirred in the room against the wall of which she crouched.

Perhaps--but, even while she reassured herself, the sound rose anew at her feet.
Fortunately at the same instant the glare of the lightning flooded all, and showed the passage, and showed it empty.

It lit up the row of doors on her right and the small windows on her left, and discovered facing her the door which shut off the rest of the house.

She could have thanked--nay, she did thank God for that light.

If the sound she had heard recurred she did not hear it; for, as the thunder which followed hard on the flash crashed overhead and rolled heavily eastwards, she felt her way boldly along the passage, touching first one door, and then a second, and then a third.
She groped for the latch of the last, and found it, but, with her hand on it, paused.