“Miss Lily, there’s some one, all in black, on the stairs; a ghost!”
“If you’re trying to frighten me,” cried Lily, jumping out of bed, “I’ll knock your other eye out! Take care!”
She was choking with excitement. Lily was afraid of nothing. But those confounded ghosts: poor Ma, perhaps! And she quickly separated two fingers wide behind her back, so as to be on the safe side and ward off ill-luck:
“Come with me, Glass-Eye; you go first!”
And Lily, in her night-dress, half-opened the door, looked out.
A thin woman, all in black, stood motionless. It was not Ma. Lily breathed more freely:
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I want to speak to Miss Lily,” said the woman in black. “I went to the theater and they gave me your address. I came.... I suppose you don’t remember me, it’s so long ago. Ave Maria, on the wire in Mexico?”
“Ave Maria! Come in,” said Lily.
Ave Maria, whom she had sought for so long. She would know at last! Oh, if it were true! God grant that it might be true! Lily, hardly recovered from her fright, quivered at the thought. And she devoured Ave Maria with her eyes. She recognized her, now that she knew: it was she indeed, but grown old before her time, looking wretched, thin, hollow-eyed, a face all skin and bone. And the two stood contemplating each other in silence.