The Shadow of the Rope

It is finished said the woman speaking very quietly to herself. Not another day nor a night if I can be ready before morning! She stood alone in her own room with none to mark the white-hot pallor of the oval face the scornful curve of quivering nostrils the dry lustre of flashing eyes. But while she stood a heavy step went blustering down two flights of stairs and double doors slammed upon the ground floor. It was a little London house with five floors from basement to attic and a couple of rooms upon each like most little houses in London; but this one had latterly been the scene of an equally undistinguished drama of real life upon which the curtain was even now descending. Although a third was whispered by the world the persons of this drama were really only two.