Even before she entered her mother's room she became conscious of a noise, something between a wail and a groan.

It was indescribably terrifying.

It was like nothing which she had ever heard before.

It did not seem possible that her mother, that anything human, in fact, was making such a noise, and yet no animal could have made it, for it was articulate.

Her mother was in fact both praying and repeating verses of Scripture, in that awful voice which was no longer capable of normal speech, but was compounded of wail and groan.