But, to their surprise, before they could reach the street door, — even before they quitted the room in which the foregoing interview had passed, — they heard footsteps in the farther passage. The door, therefore, which they supposed to be securely locked, — which Holgrave, indeed, had seen to be so, and at which Phoebe had vainly tried to enter, — must have been opened from without.

The sound of footsteps was not harsh, bold, decided, and intrusive, as the gait of strangers would naturally be, making authoritative entrance into a dwelling where they knew themselves unwelcome. It was feeble, as of persons either weak or weary; there was the mingled murmur of two voices, familiar to both the listeners.

“Can it be?” whispered Holgrave.