In her sleep, Mrs. Bantry frowned. Something disturbing had begun to penetrate the dreamlike state, something at the wrong time. Footsteps in the hallway, very hurried footsteps and very early. Her ears listened unconsciously, expecting the ringing of porcelain, but no porcelain ringing came. They knocked on the door. Automatically, from the depths of her dreams, Mrs. Bantry said: "Come in." The door opened; now they would open the curtains and the rings would rattle. But the rings did not rattle. Through the faint green light came Mary's voice – breathless, hysterical: "Oh, madam, oh, madam, there is a corpse in the library!" And then, bursting hysterically into sobs, she ran out of the room again.
Mrs. Bantry sat up in bed. Either her dream had taken a very strange turn, or... or Mary had indeed rushed into the room and said (unbelievable! unimaginable!) that there was a corpse in the library. "Impossible," Mrs. Bantry said to herself. "I must have been dreaming." Even as she said it, however, she felt more and more certain that she was not dreaming and that Mary, with her superior self-control, had indeed uttered those incredible words.