She watched the girl through the window till she was out of sight, then flopped back in her chair. The papers stood in a rack at her hand, unopened, unread. She reached out and found one, but there was no drama that could quite over-shadow that which was being played out in her heart.
She heard a tap and looked round. It was not at the door; it seemed to be at the stained-glass window. There was a little window square, level with the ledge, which could be opened and closed as a casement, and against this she saw the shadow of a head, and, with her heart thumping wildly, walked across the room.
“Who is there?” she asked.
Then came a voice that chilled her to the marrow.
“Don’t you know me, beloved?”
“Mr. Dempsi!” she gasped. “You mustn’t come here, really you mustn’t! My—my Uncle Isaac isn’t at home, and I can’t receive you.”
With an effort of will she jerked open the window and looked down upon a bearded face and eyes that shone. A wide-brimmed sombrero at the back of his head; hanging from his shoulders, a long black cape. He might have stepped from an opera.
“I—I can’t see you now, really I can’t! Won’t you call next Wednesday week?”
So that was Dempsi! She remembered dimly some resemblance to the bare-faced boy she had known. Perhaps that wild glitter of eye, that furious gesticulation.
“Diana,” he breathed, “I’ve come back from the grave to claim you!”