He walked towards the door, and put his hand kindly on Darda’s shoulder; for Darda it was that had come, softly and unbidden, into the room, and who stood silently awaiting the upshot of the explosion her entrance had evoked.
Her slim white figure, her immobile face and glowing hair, made of her against the fire-lit wall such a presentment of the spiritual as one sees in old cathedral frescoes; but, at her master’s touch, a rose grew to her cheek, announcing her all one at heart with pitiful humanity.
“What is it, Darda?”
She looked up in his face with solemn eyes.
“The shadows!” she whispered—“they are abroad again; far off at present—but they are stretching towards the house, and by and by they will reach it.”
He scanned her face earnestly. Suddenly it recurred to him how once before this fancy of hers had been significant of a certain peril.
“Come,” he said hurriedly—“come and show me.”
He cried to his companions that he would be back in a moment, hesitated, and called to Dennis to follow him. Luvaine uttered a wild exclamation; but he took no heed of it.
Out in the hall, the girl sped swiftly to the stairway, the two men following her. A startled housemaid made room for them to pass, and afterwards announced in the kitchen that she had seen “crazy” playing follow-my-leader with master and her brother.
Up to the very top floor of the house; further, by way of a flight of steps, to a trap-door, and so to the leads, where the frost sparkled like emery paper, Darda climbed and the men pursued her. And there, in the high freezing night, she stood erect and pointed with her hand.