The House of the Arrow by A.E.W. Mason — Read

ANN UPCOTT'S story was in the light of this new disclosure intelligible enough. Standing in the darkness, she had heard, as she thought, Mrs. Harlowe in one of her violent outbreaks. Then with a sense of relief she had understood that Jeanne Baudin the nurse was with Mrs. Harlowe, controlling and restraining her and finally administering some sedative. She had heard the outcries diminish and cease and a final whisper from the nurse to her patient or even perhaps to herself, "That will do now." Then she had turned and fled, taking care to attract no attention to herself. Real cowardice had nothing to do with her flight. The crisis was over. Her intervention, which before would only have been a provocation to a wilder outburst on the part of Mrs. Harlowe, was now altogether without excuse. It would once more have aroused the invalid, and next day would have added to the discomfort and awkwardness of life in the Maison Grenelle. For Mrs. Harlowe sober would have known that Ann had been a witness of one more of her dreadful exhibitions. The best thing which Ann could do, she did, given that her interpretation of the scene was the true one. She ran noiselessly back in the darkness to her room.

-"Yes," said Hanaud. "But you believe now that your interpretation was not correct. You believe now that whilst you stood in the darkness with the door open and the light beyond, Madame Harlowe was being murdered, coldly and cruelly murdered a few feet away from you."