She knocked again. From within came the scraping of a chair cautiously shoved back, followed by a deep-mouthed cavernous growl.
Her heart stood still, but she turned the handle and entered, leaving a crack open behind.
On the far side the room a little man was sitting. His head was swathed in dirty bandages, and a bottle was on the table beside him. He was leaning forward; his face was gray, and there was a stare of naked horror in his eyes. One hand grasped the great dog who stood at his side, with yellow teeth glinting, and muzzle hideously wrinkled; with the other he pointed a palsied finger at her.
“Ma God! wha are ye?” he cried hoarsely.
The girl stood hard against the door, her fingers still on the handle; trembling like an aspen at the sight of that uncannie pair.
That look in the little man's eyes petrified her: the swollen pupils; lashless lids, yawning wide; the broken range of teeth in that gaping mouth, froze her very soul. Rumors of the man's insanity tided back on her memory.
“I'm—I—” the words came in trembling gasps.
At the first utterance, however, the little man's hand dropped; he leant back in his chair and gave a soul-bursting sigh of relief.
No woman had crossed that threshold since his wife died; and, for a moment, when first the girl had entered silent-footed, aroused from dreaming of the long ago, he had thought this shawl-clad figure with the pale face and peeping hair no earthly visitor; the spirit, rather, of one he had loved long since and lost, come to reproach him with a broken troth.
“Speak up, I canna hear,” he said, in tones mild compared with those last wild words.