I closed the curtain, feeling that my last impression was in keeping with the rest.
And yet it was not quite the last.

I found myself weary and yet wakeful, tossing restlessly from side to side, seeking for the sleep which would not come.

Far away a chiming clock struck out the quarters of the hours, but otherwise a deathly silence lay upon the old house.

And then suddenly, in the very dead of the night, there came a sound to my ears, clear, resonant, and unmistakable.

It was the sob of a woman, the muffled, strangling gasp of one who is torn by an uncontrollable sorrow.
I sat up in bed and listened intently.