Page:Lawrence Lynch--The last stroke.djvu/109

Rh to that every night, as soon as it's lamp-lighting time; them downstairs I shut, them upstairs I open, sometimes. I knew where that slammin' shutter was by the sound, and it set me to dressing quick. I had opened the shutters on Mr. Brierly's windows that very afternoon, thinking the rooms would not seem quite so dreary and lonesome when his brother came to look through 'em and they was locked open, I knew well! All the same, it was them shutters, or one of 'em, that was clattering then, and I knew it."

"Were you alone in the house, you and your little girl?" asked Ferrars.

"All alone, yes, sir; and I took Nellie with me and went out into the hall"

"You mean downstairs?"

"Yes, sir. We sleep downstairs. Now, I thought I had seen that everything was right when Mr. Jones and Mary was with me, but when we went into that hall—Doctor—" turning again toward that gentlemen, for she had addressed her later remarks to Ferrars,—"I guess you may remember a shelf just at the foot of the stairs. It's right behind the door, when it stands open, and that's why we hadn't seen it, or I hadn't before. Well, I always set the lamp for Mr. Brierly's room—his bedroom lamp, that is—on that shelf for him every morning, as soon as it had been filled for the night's burning; and the