She hesitated, but at length ventured up the next stair, beginning, however, to feel a little troubled as well as eerie, the silence was so obstinately persistent.

Was it possible that there was no violin in that brown paper?
But that boy could not be a liar.
Passing shelves piled-up with stores of old thread, she still went on, led by a curiosity stronger than her gathering fear.

At last she came to a little room, the door of which was open, and there she saw Robert lying on the floor with his head in a pool of blood.
Now Mary St.John was both brave and kind; and, therefore, though not insensible to the fact that she too must be in danger where violence had been used to a boy, she set about assisting him at once.

His face was deathlike, but she did not think he was dead.

She drew him out into the passage, for the room was close, and did all she could to recover him; but for some time he did not even breathe.