There were voices outside, Briggs's and Rudolph's.
"Guess that's for me."
"Like hell it is."
She ran madly up the stairs again, and tried with shaking fingers
to screw the door-hinges into place again. She fully expected that
they would kill her. She heard Briggs go out, and after a time she
heard Rudolph trying to kick in the house door. Then, when the
last screw was back in place, she heard Herman's heavy step outside,
and Rudolph's voice, high, furious, and insistent.
Had Herman not been obsessed with the thing he was to do, he might
have beaten her to death that night. But he did not. She remained
in her room, without food or water. She had made up her mind to
kill herself with the knife if they came up after her, but the only
sounds she heard were of high voices, growing lower and more sinister.
After that, for days she was a prisoner. Herman moved his bed
down-stairs and slept in the sitting-room, the five or six hours of
day-light sleep which were all he required.
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