"Do you hear any sound?"
"No."
"Was that a hand which touched me?"
"No."
"We must wait."
And so silence came again, and suddenly there was quite a rush of
light into the recess. Celia was startled. She turned her head
back again towards the window. The wooden door had swung a little
more open. There was a wider chink to let the twilight of that
starlit darkness through. And as she looked, the chink slowly
broadened and broadened, the door swung slowly back on hinges
which were strangely silent. Celia stared at the widening panel of
grey light with a vague terror. It was strange that she could hear
no whisper of wind in the garden. Why, oh, why was that latticed
door opening so noiselessly? Almost she believed that the spirits
after all... And suddenly the recess darkened again, and Celia sat
with her heart leaping and shivering in her breast. There was
something black against the glass doors--a man. He had appeared as
silently, as suddenly, as any apparition. He stood blocking out
the light, pressing his face against the glass, peering into the
room. For a moment the shock of horror stunned her. Then she tore
frantically at the cords. All thought of failure, of exposure, of
dismissal had fled from her. The three poor women--that was her
thought--were sitting unwarned, unsuspecting, defenceless in the
pitch-blackness of the salon. A few feet away a man, a thief, was
peering in. They were waiting for strange things to happen in the
darkness. Strange and terrible things would happen unless she
could free herself, unless she could warn them. And she could not.
Her struggles were mere efforts to struggle, futile, a shiver from
head to foot, and noiseless as a shiver. Adele Rossignol had done
her work well and thoroughly. Celia's arms, her waist, her ankles
were pinioned; only the bandage over her mouth seemed to be
loosening. Then upon horror, horror was added. The man touched the
glass doors, and they swung silently inwards. They, too, had been
carelessly left unbolted. The man stepped without a sound over the
sill into the room. And, as he stepped, fear for herself drove out
for the moment from Celia's thoughts fear for the three women in
the black room. If only he did not see her! She pressed herself
against the pillar. He might overlook her, perhaps! His eyes would
not be so accustomed to the darkness of the recess as hers. He
might pass her unnoticed--if only he did not touch some fold of
her dress.
And then, in the midst of her terror, she experienced so great a
revulsion from despair to joy that a faintness came upon her, and
she almost swooned. She saw who the intruder was. For when he
stepped into the recess he turned towards her, and the dim light
struck upon him and showed her the contour of his face. It was her
lover, Harry Wethermill. Why he had come at this hour, and in this
strange way, she did not consider. Now she must attract his eyes,
now her fear was lest he should not see her.