In the seven o'clock half light of a
February evening, in the middle of the week, she went along the matted
upper hall on tip-toe, and stumbled over a veiled form squatted in the
native way, near his door, profoundly asleep. "Ayah!" she exclaimed, but
the face that looked confusedly up at her was white, whiter than common,
Captain Filbert's face. Alicia drew her hand away and made an
imperceptible movement in the direction of her skirts. She stood silent,
stricken in the dusk with fear and wonder, but the sense that was
strangest in her was plainly that of having made a criminal discovery.
Laura stumbled upon her feet, and the two faced each other for an
instant; words held from them equally by the authority of the sickroom
door. Then Alicia beckoned as imperiously as if the other had in fact
been the servant she took her for, and Laura followed to where, further
on, a bedroom door stood open, which presently closed upon them both. It
was a spacious room, with pale, high-hung draperies, a scent of flowers,
such things as an etching of Greuze, an ivory and ebon crucifix over the
bed. Captain Filbert remembered the crucifix afterward with a feeling
almost intense, also some silver-backed brushes on the toilet table.
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