Across a hallway I saw an open door, and from the room within came groans, or perhaps I should call them long-drawn wails of woe.
I was in the room in a moment, and the others crowded through the door-way behind me.

It was a good-sized bedroom, probably the "spare-room" of the first floor.

In one corner was a tall and wide high-posted bedstead, and in the very middle of it sat an elderly woman drawn up into the smallest compass into which she could possibly compress herself.

Her eyes were closed, her jaws were dropped, her spectacles hung in front of her mouth, her gray hair straggled over her eyes, and her skin was of a soapy whiteness.
She paid no attention to the crowd of people in the room.

Evidently she was frightened out of her senses.