Eleven o'clock
She propped herself comfortably in pillows , turned on a light , and began to read . Ellie fussed about the room for a few minutes , and then was gone . The big house was very still . Eleven o'clock struck from the little mahogany clock on her mantel , midnight struck , and still Jim 's footstep did not come up the stairs , and there was no welcome sound of occupancy in the room adjoining her own . Suddenly terror smote Julia ; she flung her book aside and sat up erect in bed . Her heart was thundering with fear ; the silence of the house was like that that follows an explosion . For a few dreadful seconds she sat motionless ; then she thrust her bare feet in the slippers of warm white fox that Ellie had put out , and caught up a Japanese robe of black crepe , in which her figure was quite lost .