Read "The Step on the Stair" by Anna Katharine Green online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The next day was one of almost unendurable apprehension. Edgar, Orpha and myself could not face each other. The servants could not face us. If we moved from our rooms and by chance met in any of the halls we gazed at each other like specters and like specters flitted by without a word.
Orpha had a friend with her or I could not have stood it. For a long time I did not know who this friend was; then from some whisper I heard echoing up my convenient little stairway I learned that it was Lucy Colfax, Edgar's real love and Dr. Hunter's fiancée.