The girl looked at him and said, "No!" He wondered why extreme agitation made the eyes of some women so limpid and bright.
"Who is here besides yourself?"
By this time his pursuit had driven her to the end of the hall, and she remained there with her back to the wall and her hands still behind her. When she answered this question, she did not look at him but down at the floor. She cleared her voice and then said: "There is no one here."
"No one?"
She lifted her eyes to him in that appeal that the human being must make even to falling trees, crashing boulders, the sea in a storm, and said, "No, no, there is no one here." He could plainly see her tremble.
Of a sudden he bethought him that she continually kept her hands behind her. As he recalled her air when first discovered, he remembered she appeared precisely as a child detected at one of the crimes of childhood. Moreover, she had always backed away from him. He thought now that she was concealing something which was an evidence of the presence of the enemy in the house.
"What are you holding behind you?" he said suddenly.
She gave a little quick moan, as if some grim hand had throttled her.
"What are you holding behind you?"
"Oh, nothing—please. I am not holding anything behind me; indeed I'm not."