"In that room. I shall wait for you. There is no other light. Take this lamp."
Paulton now saw her fully. She was dark, almost swarthy. There was no colour in her cheek. Her forehead was small and compact. Her eyebrows and hair jet, glossy. Her eyes were dark, large, a little sunken, brilliant, and full of suppressed fire. The nose was slightly aquiline. The only relief to the dark hue of the face and the black of the eyebrows, hair, and eyes, was afforded by the full, red, ripe lips. And all the features, the forehead, the nose, the chin, the mouth, the cheeks, were finely modelled. The face was commanding, imperial, triumphant. It was as set and firm as marble. It was the face of an empress born to lead her legions to victory--of a woman in whom courage was a matter of course, who regarded obedience to her wish as a spontaneous offering. She had the immortality of indestructible will in her face, the weight of irresistible determination.
With the face ended the heroic aspect of the woman.
At her throat blazed the diamonds of a brooch large as the palm of her hand. On her fingers glittered a dozen diamond rings. The belt round her waist was fastened with a diamond clasp. The diamonds at her throat held an orange-coloured silk scarf. The rest of her dress was dead black, close-fitting to the figure, and full of folds below the waist. The arms were bare half-way from the elbow to the wrist. The figure, the arms, the hands were subduingly soft and feminine. The arms and wrists were round, the hands exquisitely delicate, with fine taper fingers, the bust a miracle of rich symmetry.
It was the head of Boadicea on the figure of Rosamond.
Dr. Santley took up the lamp from the hall table and entered the room she had indicated. Paulton paused for a moment in doubt as to whether he should go or stay. The hall lay now in comparative darkness; there was no light except what came through the open door of the front room.
"Follow him."
It was her voice.
Paulton obeyed. As he got inside the doorposts he turned round and looked back into the hall. He could make out nothing but the glitter of the diamonds at her throat, in her girdle, on her fingers. They were stars against the darkness of her dress, as the stars abroad in heaven against the sightless robe of night.
The room in which Dr. Santley and Paulton found themselves was in the greatest disorder. In one corner lay the carpet rolled up, in another the hearth-rug, fender, fire-irons, and coal-scuttle. All along the right side stood a row of chairs, one inverted on another. Pictures rested on the floor with their faces against the wall; the gaselier sprawled close by the window; the leaves of the dining-table were set against the folding-doors at the back. The drawers and pillars of the sideboard were hard by, the top and back of it stretched upward into the gloom of a deep recess; several boxes and canvas packages littered the floor. Two knights in plate-armour reclined one at each corner of the chimney-piece; easy-chairs were wedged in among amorphous bundles wrapped in Indian matting; rods and poles protruded from under legs of chairs, under bales heaped upon one another. A small table, face down upon another, held its slender legs up in air. Some fire still smouldered in the grate; the fire must have been large not long ago, for the room was still warm.