I can say now neither what determined nor what guided me, but I went
straight along the lobby, holding my candle high, till I came within sight
of the tall window that presided over the great turn of the staircase.
At this point I precipitately found myself aware of three things.
They were practically simultaneous, yet they had flashes of succession.
My candle, under a bold flourish, went out, and I perceived, by the uncovered
window, that the yielding dusk of earliest morning rendered it unnecessary.
Without it, the next instant, I saw that there was someone on the stair.
I speak of sequences, but I required no lapse of seconds to stiffen
myself for a third encounter with Quint. The apparition had reached
the landing halfway up and was therefore on the spot nearest the window,
where at sight of me, it stopped short and fixed me exactly as it had fixed
me from the tower and from the garden. He knew me as well as I knew him;
and so, in the cold, faint twilight, with a glimmer in the high glass
and another on the polish of the oak stair below, we faced each
other in our common intensity. He was absolutely, on this occasion,
a living, detestable, dangerous presence. But that was not the wonder
of wonders; I reserve this distinction for quite another circumstance:
the circumstance that dread had unmistakably quitted me and that there
was nothing in me there that didn't meet and measure him.
Pages:
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91