In another instant she
saw it again, in the second strip of moonlight--lost it again--saw it in
the third strip--lost it once more--and saw it in the fourth. Moment by
moment it advanced, now mysteriously lost in the shadow, now suddenly
visible again in the light, until it reached the fifth and nearest strip
of moonlight. There it paused, and strayed aside slowly to the middle of
the Hall. It stopped at the tripod, and stood, shivering audibly in the
silence, with its hands raised over the dead ashes, in the action of
warming them at a fire. It turned back again, moving down the path of
the moonlight, stopped at the fifth window, turned once more, and came
on softly through the shadow straight to the place where Magdalen stood.
Her voice was dumb, her will was helpless. Every sense in her but the
seeing sense was paralyzed. The seeing sense--held fast in the fetters
of its own terror--looked unchangeably straightforward, as it had looked
from the first. There she stood in the door-way, full in the path of the
figure advancing on her through the shadow, nearer and nearer, step by
step.
It came close.
The bonds of horror that held her burst asunder when it was within
arm's-length.
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