The place, though poor and narrow, was not squalid. Sir George could see

so much by the light which shone from a window and fell on a group of

five or six persons, who stood about the nearest door and talked in low,

excited voices. He had a good view of one man's face, and read in it

gloom and anger. Then the group made way for the girl, eyeing her, as he

thought, with pity and a sort of deference; and cursing the folly that

had brought him into such a place and situation, wondering what on

earth it all meant or in what it would end, he followed her into

the house.

She opened a door on the right-hand side of the narrow passage, and led

the way into a long, low room. For a moment he saw no more than two

lights on a distant table, and kneeling at a chair beside them a woman

with grey dishevelled hair, who seemed to be praying, her face hidden.

Then his gaze, sinking instinctively, fell on a low bed between him and

the woman; and there rested on a white sheet, and on the solemn

outlines--so certain in their rigidity, so unmistakable by human

eyes--of a body laid out for burial.




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