He could not see her face for
it was completely shrouded in a long oriental veil, but the bowed
shoulders, the slow, unsteady step indicated an advanced age or an
overpowering physical weakness. She came on without hesitation,
passing so close to Travers that she brushed his arm, and reached the
hangings before the window. There she paused. Travers passed his hand
quickly before his eyes. Her movements had been so quiet, so blindly
indifferent to his presence that he could not for the moment free
himself from the fancy that he was in the power of an hallucination.
Then she lifted her hand, drawing the curtain back, and he uttered an
involuntary, half-smothered exclamation. The hand was thin, claw-like,
white as though no drop of blood flowed beneath the lifeless skin, and
on the fourth finger he saw a plain band of gold.
"Who are you?" Travers demanded. The question had left his lips almost
without his knowledge. She turned and looked at him, and in spite of
the veil he felt the full intensity of a gaze which seemed to be
seeking his very soul. How long they stood there watching each other
in breathless silence Travers did not know. Nor did he know why this
strange, powerless figure filled him with a sickening repulsion and
held him paralyzed so that he could only wait in passive, motionless
expectation. Suddenly the hand sank to her side and he shook himself
as though he had been awakened from a nightmare.
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