"Come in," she said briefly.
Caius went in, and had reason to regret, as well on his own account as
on hers, that she shut the door. To be out in the summer would have been
longer life for her, and to have the summer shut out made him realize
forcibly that he was alone in the desolate house with a woman whose
madness gave her a weird seeming which was almost equivalent to
ghostliness.
When one enters a house from which the public has long been excluded and
which is the abode of a person of deranged mind, it is perhaps natural
to expect, although unconsciously, that the interior arrangements should
be very strange. Instead of this, the house, gloomy and sparsely
furnished as it was, was clean and in order. It lacked everything to
make it pleasant--air, sunshine, and any cheerful token of comfort; but
it was only in this dreary negation that it failed; there was no
positive fault to be found even with the atmosphere of the kitchen and
bare lobby through which he was conducted, and he discovered, to his
surprise, that he was to be entertained in a small parlour, which had a
round polished centre table, on which lay the usual store of such things
as are seen in such parlours all the world over--a Bible, a couple of
albums, a woollen mat, and an ornament under a glass case.
Caius sat down, holding his hat in his hand, with an odd feeling that he
was acting a part in behaving as if the circumstances were at all
ordinary.
Pages:
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295