"I will see what I can do," said he, and returning to Edgar, who had remained standing by the parlor-door, he preceded him into that gloomy apartment.
The girls were both there, seated, as Frank perceived with a certain sinking of the heart, in the farthest and dimmest corner of this most forbidding place. Emma was looking towards them, but Hermione sat with downcast eyes and an air of discouragement about her Frank found it hard to behold unmoved.
"Hermione," said he, advancing into the middle of the room, "have you no welcome for me?"
Trembling with sudden feeling, she rose slowly to her feet; and her eyes lifted themselves painfully to his.
"Forgive me," she entreated, "I have had such a shock."
"Shock?"
"Yes. Look at my head! look at my hair!"
She bent forward; he hastened to her side and glanced at the rich locks towards which she pointed. As he did so, he recoiled in sudden awe and confusion. "What does it mean?" he asked. There were gray spots in those dusky tresses, spots which had never been there before.
"The fingers of a ghost have touched me," she whispered. "Wherever they fell, a mark has been left, and those marks sear my brain."
And then Frank noticed, with inward horror, that the spots were regular and ran in a distinct circle about her head.