Don't be frightened!"
There was such silence that he could hear a clock ticking, and the sound
of his own hand passing over the surface of the wall, trying to find the
switch. He found it, and in the light which leaped up he saw, stiffened
against a dark curtain evidently screening off a bedroom, a girl
standing, holding a long black coat together at her throat, so that
her face with its pale brown hair, short and square-cut and curling up
underneath, had an uncanny look of being detached from any body. Her
face was so alabaster pale that the staring, startled eyes, dark blue or
brown, and the faint rose of the parted lips, were like colour stainings
on a white mask; and it had a strange delicacy, truth, and pathos, such
as only suffering brings. Though not susceptible to aesthetic emotion,
Keith was curiously affected. He said gently:
"You needn't be afraid. I haven't come to do you harm--quite the
contrary. May I sit down and talk?" And, holding up the keys, he added:
"Laurence wouldn't have given me these, would he, if he hadn't trusted
me?"
Still she did not move, and he had the impression that he was looking at
a spirit--a spirit startled out of its flesh.
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