The
Banqueting-Hall was close on the other side of the wooden partition
against which she stood; her excited imagination felt the death-like
chill of it flowing over her already.
She pushed back the sliding door a few inches--and stopped in momentary
alarm. When the admiral had closed it in her presence that day, she had
heard no noise. When old Mazey had opened it to show her the rooms in
the east wing, she had heard no noise. Now, in the night silence, she
noticed for the first time that the door made a sound--a dull, rushing
sound, like the wind.
She roused herself, and pushed it further back--pushed it halfway into
the hollow chamber in the wall constructed to receive it. She advanced
boldly into the gap, and met the night view of the Banqueting-Hall face
to face.
The moon was rounding the southern side of the house. Her paling beams
streamed through the nearer windows, and lay in long strips of slanting
light on the marble pavement of the Hall. The black shadows of the
pediments between each window, alternating with the strips of light,
heightened the wan glare of the moonshine on the floor. Toward its lower
end, the Hall melted mysteriously into darkness.
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