There&nbsp;was the listening hush of midnight in the house. No light burned in any of the rooms, but through the windows, where the blinds were up, a woe-begone struggling moon shone palely.<br />The big bedroom at the front of the house was empty, and the moonbeams lay quiet on the smooth white counterpane of the canopied bed. Even in so faint a light it was plain to see the room was unused; the chairs and sofa held no heaps of flung-off clothes, the dressing-table appointments were in the most precise order, the chill air lay over everything, unbroken by the regular fall and rise of human breath.<br />The mother had taken the visitors&rsquo; room to sleep in ever since the day two months ago when Death had&nbsp;walked whitely into that larger room and frozen with his strange breath the father of her youngest child.