Page 136 (1/1)
Then in an instant the climax came, and this is what she saw
The co in straight folds froently parted--she saw the long fingers that laid hold of thele step, and stood on the floor before her eyes, in the plain candlelight, not four steps away
It was the figure of a young girl, perfectly for muslin that fell almost to the feet and shrouded the upper part of the head Her hands were clasped across her breast, her bare feet were visible against the dark floor, and her features were unmistakably clear
There was a certain beauty in the face--in the young lips, the open eyes, and the dark lines of the brows over them; and the complexion axen, clear as of a blonde But, as the observer had noticed before on the three or four occasions on which she had seen these phenoe mask-like set of the features, as if the life that lay behind them had not perfectly saturated that which expressed it It was so utterly different from the face of a dead person, yet also not coh the eyes turned a little in their sockets, and the young down-curved lips smiled Behind her, plain between the tossed-back curtains, was the figure of the medium sunk in sleep
And so for a few seconds the apparition re those seconds the whole world was still Whether in truth the wind had dropped, or whether the absorbed attention perceived nothing but theof theof the watch upon her orist
Then, as once urewith a , it even appeared, that faint vibration on the floor as of a living body
She stood so near now, though with her back to the diffused light of the ante-room, that her features were more plain than before--the stained lips, the open eyes, the shadow beneath the nostrils and chin, even the white fingers clasped across the breast There was none of that vague mistiness that had been seen once before in that roo person; even the swell of the breast beneath the hands, the slender sloping shoulders, the long curved line froain the staring eyes of the watcher took in, and her htface