As she stood at last, panting and dazed with her mad circling, she was aware of the low murmur of a voice, rising and falling in a steady measure, reaching out of the dim bulk of the great house, dark and sunk in sleep before her. For a moment a chill fear struck to the bottom of her little heart: was some weird spell aimed at her, some malignant eye spying on her? She stood frozen to the spot, the tiny drops of sweat cooling on her forehead, while the droning sounded in her ears. Then, out of the very core of her terror, some inexplicable impulse urged her on to face it, and she crept, step by step, the cat tight in her nervous grasp, around the corner of the great house, toward the sound.
This corner was a wing, set at right angles to the main building, and as she rounded it she found herself at the edge of an inner court. In the opposite wing, looking straight across the court, was a lighted room with a long French window opening directly on the shaven turf, and in the center of this window there sat in a high, carved chair a very old woman. She was carefully dressed in deep black, with pure white ruffles at her neck and around her shrunken wrists, and a lace cap on her thin, white hair. Her feet were on a carved foot-stool, and a quaint silver lamp, set on a slender table at her side, threw a stream of light across the court. Her face, lined with countless wrinkles, was bent upon a large book in her lap; from its pages she read in a low, steady voice—the passionless, almost terrifying voice of great and weary age:
"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
"Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hast formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God."
Caroline stared, fascinated, down the path of lamplight. It marked a bed of yellow tulips with a broad band; they stood motionless, as if carved in ivory.
Across the court was a lighted room with a long French window, and in the center of this window there sat in a high, carved chair a very old woman.
"For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night."