As Gilles de Sillé opened it for the maids to precede him, the skirt of Maud Lindesay's robe, blown back by the draught of the chamber, fluttered against the cheek of Laurence MacKim as he lay on his face in the niche of the wall. At the light touch he came to himself, and looked about with a strange and instant change in all the affections and movements of his heart.
With the coming in of the maidens, fear seemed utterly to forsake him. A clarity of purpose, an alertness of brain, a strength of heart unknown before, took the place of the trembling bath of horror in which he had swooned away.
It was like the sudden appearance of two white angels walking fearless and unscathed through the grim dominions of the Lords of Hell.
Incarnate Good had somehow entered the house of the Demon, though it was in the slender periphery of two maidens' bodies, and evil, strong and resistless before, seemed in the moment to lose half its power.
It was like the sudden appearance of two white angels walking fearless and unscathed through the grim dominions of the Lords of Hell.