The doorway faced
south, and bit by bit the bar of sunlight that had entered therein began
moving to the left across the floor. Unconsciously, for the lack of
anything better to do, she watched its advance. It fell upon a tiny
shelf against the wall, littered with a collection of papers and
magazines; and the reflected light from the white sheets glared in her
eyes. It came to the supper table of the night before, the table she had
not cleared, and like an accusing hand, lay directed at the evidence of
her own slothfulness. On it went with the passing time, on and on;
crossed a bare spot on the uncarpeted floor, and like a live thing,
began climbing the wall beyond.
Deliberately, with a sort of fascination now, the girl watched its
advance. Her nerves were on edge this morning, and in its relentless
stealth it began to assume an element of the uncanny. Like a hostile
alien thing, it seemed searching here and there in the tiny room for
something definite, something it did not find. Fatuous as it may seem,
the impression grew upon her, augmented until in its own turn it became
a dominant influence. Her glance, heretofore absent, perfunctory, became
intense. The glare was well above the floor by this time and climbing
higher and higher. Answering the mythical challenge, of a sudden she sat
up free in bed and, as though at a spoken injunction, looked about her
fairly.
The place where she glanced, the point toward which the light was
mounting, was beside her own bed and where, from rough-fashioned wooden
pegs, hung the Indian's pathetically scant wardrobe.
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