A startled look came upon Mr. Ayling’s face, but he made no comment.
“Her companion is an elderly woman,” continued the monk as if speaking in a trance. “Over her shoulders is flung a dark blue beach cape. The picture is fading now—I am losing the vision.”
Penny’s attention, wandering again, was drawn as if by a powerful magnet to the curtains covering the exit.
In fascination, she watched. An inch at a time, the door moved outward. Then a hand appeared between the black velvet draperies, cautiously pulling them apart.
Penny wondered if her eyes were playing tricks upon her. She felt an overpowering impulse to laugh or call out. Yet her throat was dry and tight.
The scene seemed fantastic. It couldn’t be real, she told herself. Yet those curtains steadily were moving farther apart.
An arm came into view, then the side of a human figure. Last of all, a face, ghostly pale against the dark background, slowly emerged.
For one fleeting instant Penny saw a girl only a little older than herself, standing half wrapped in the folds of the velvet curtain. Their eyes met.
In that moment, through Penny’s brain flashed the message that the one who crouched in the doorway was the same girl she and Louise had picked up on the road only the previous night.
“But that’s crazy!” she thought. “It couldn’t be the same person! I must be dreaming!”