And all the time she kept the same staring, strained, frowning, questioning look fixed on me.
"What's the matter?" I cried again. "Are you ill?" I thought she was in for a fit of some kind.
But all she did was to continue to stare with the same indescribable intensity, the heavy brows closing together as the frown deepened on her forehead.
"My God!"
The exclamation seemed to be wrung from her in sheer pain of thought.
She took hold of my arm again and examined the same place once more with briefer but no less fierce scrutiny.
Then looking up again into my face she let the arm fall. She seemed to shrink from me as she drew in one long deep shivering breath that sounded between her teeth. Next she turned away and sat down, pressing both her hands to her face.
Every vestige of feeling and passion had passed, leaving only the close, concentrated, strained tension. The colour had left her cheeks: and the roundness and beauty of her face appeared to have been transformed in a moment into a veritable presentment of lean, haggard, vigilant doubt.
Many minutes passed before either of us spoke. Then she got up and again came quite close to me and staring right into my eyes, asked in a voice all changed and unmusical—a sort of keen piercing whisper, that seemed to send a chill through me—while she pointed to my arm:—
"What does it mean? Who are you?"