I stood at the door and gave ear to them, till at, last they died away.

Long after that, I still lingered and still continued to hear them mingle in fancy with the storming of the wind; and when at last I crept to my bed, it was with a deadly sickness and a blackness of horror on my heart.
It was little wonder if I slept no more.

Why had I been locked in?
What had passed?
Who was the author of these indescribable and shocking cries?
A human being?
It was inconceivable.

A beast?
The cries were scarce quite bestial; and what animal, short of a lion or a tiger, could thus shake the solid walls of the residencia?
And while I was thus turning over the elements of the mystery, it came into my mind that I had not yet set eyes upon the daughter of the house.

What was more probable than that the daughter of the Senora, and the sister of Felipe, should be herself insane?
Or, what more likely than that these ignorant and half- witted people should seek to manage an afflicted kinswoman by violence?
Here was a solution; and yet when I called to mind the cries (which I never did without a shuddering chill) it seemed altogether insufficient: not even cruelty could wring such cries from madness.