Clementina by A.E.W. Mason

It was still night when Wogan opened his eyes, but the night was now clear of mist. There was no moon, however, to give him a guess at the hour. He lay upon his back among the dead leaves, and looking upwards at the stars, caught as it seemed in a lattice-work of branches, floated back into consciousness. He moved, and the movement turned him sick with pain.

The knowledge of his wounds came to him and brought with it a clear recollection of the last three nights. The ever-widening black strip in the door on the first night, the clutch at his throat and the leap from the cupboard on the second, the silent watching of those five pairs of eyes on the third, and the lackey with the knife in his breast hopping with both feet horribly across the floor, -- the horror of these recollections swept in upon him and changed him from a man into a timorous child. He lay and shuddered until in every creak of the branches he heard the whisper of an enemy, in every flutter of leaves across the lawn a stealthy footstep, and behind every tree-stem he caught the flap of a cloak.