After waiting a little longer to let the others get away from
the hall I entered in my turn. The small gas-jet seemed not to
have been touched ever since that distant night when Mills and I
trod the black-and-white marble hall for the first time on the
heels of Captain Blunt--who lived by his sword. And in the dimness
and solitude which kept no more trace of the three strangers than
if they had been the merest ghosts I seemed to hear the ghostly
murmur, "Americain, Catholique et gentilhomne. Amer. . . " Unseen
by human eye I ran up the flight of steps swiftly and on the first
floor stepped into my sitting-room of which the door was open . . .
"et gentilhomme." I tugged at the bell pull and somewhere down
below a bell rang as unexpected for Therese as a call from a ghost.
I had no notion whether Therese could hear me. I seemed to
remember that she slept in any bed that happened to be vacant. For
all I knew she might have been asleep in mine. As I had no matches
on me I waited for a while in the dark. The house was perfectly
still. Suddenly without the slightest preliminary sound light fell
into the room and Therese stood in the open door with a candlestick
in her hand.
She had on her peasant brown skirt.
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