Still without speaking, Dunn stepped forward into the room and, closing the door, stood with his back to it.
She shrank away and put her hand upon a chair, but for the support of which she must certainly have fallen, for her limbs were trembling so violently they gave her little support.
“Don't hurt me,” she panted.
In truth he presented a strange and terrifying appearance. The unkempt hair that covered his face and through which his keen eyes glowed like fire, gave him an unusual and formidable aspect. In one hand he held the ugly-looking jemmy he had taken from the burglar, and the new clothes he had donned, ill-fitting and soiled, served to accentuate the ungainliness of his form.
The frightened girl was not even sure that he was human, and she shrank yet further away from him till she sank down upon the bed, dizzy with fear and almost swooning.
As yet he had not spoken, for his eyes had gone to the mantlepiece on which he saw that the photograph signed with the name “Charley Wright,” did not now stand upright, but had fallen forward on its face so that one could no longer see what it represented.
It must have fallen just as he entered the room and this seemed to him an omen, though whether of good or ill, he did not know.
“Who are you?” the girl stammered. “What do you want?”
He looked at her moodily and still without answering, though in his bright and keen eyes a strange light burned.
She was lovely, he thought, of that there could be no question. But her beauty made to him small appeal, for he was wondering what kind of soul lay behind those perfect features, that smooth and delicate skin, those luminous eyes. Yet his eyes were still hard and it was in his roughest, gruffest tones that he said: