So, together they kept watch and ward, and as the night wore on, Mrs.Nutter's slumbers grew more natural and less brief, and her paroxysms of waking terror less maniacal.

Still she would waken, with a cry that thrilled them, from some frightful vision, and seem to hear or see nothing aright for a good while after, and muttering to the frightened maids-- 'Listen to the knocking--oh!--breathing outside the door--bolt it, Betty--girls, say your prayers--'tis he,' or sometimes, ''tis she.' And thus this heavy night wore over; and the wind, which began to rise as the hours passed, made sounds full of sad untranslatable meaning in the ears of the watchers.
Poor Mrs.Sturk meanwhile, in the House by the Church-yard, sat listening and wondering, and plying her knitting-needles in the drawing-room.

When the hour of her Barney's expected return had passed some time, she sent down to the barrack, and then to the club, and then on to the King's House, with her service to Mrs.Stafford, to enquire, after her spouse.

But her first and her second round of enquiries, despatched at the latest minute at which she was likely to find any body out of bed to answer them, were altogether fruitless.

And the lights went out in one house after another, and the Phoenix shut its doors, and her own servants were for hours gone to bed; and the little town of Chapelizod was buried in the silence of universal slumber.