As her feet touched the floor, she lurched forward with
weakness. She clutched at the clothes and held herself erect; but
her knees trembled, knocking together like wooden clubs that are
shaken by reckless vibration.
With a little moan of weakness she stumbled to the door, holding to
the end of the bed, the back of a chair, the handle of the door in
her uncertain progress.
As soon as she heard the key turned, Janet entered and found Sally
in her night-dress, a white ghost of what she was, swinging
unsteadily before her--so a dead body, swung from a gallows, eddies
in a lifting wind.
"Sally!" she exclaimed.
Sally stared at her. Her dry lips half-parted to make Janet's name.
Her eyes, burnt out in the deep black hollows, flickered with a light
of thankful recognition. Then she swung forward, a dead weight on
to Janet's shoulder.
For a moment, Janet held her there, looking over the shoulders that
crumbled against her thin breast, at the disordered room before her.
She saw the crusts of bread, she saw the bed-clothes hanging to the
floor. She gazed down at the unkempt head of hair that dragged
lifelessly on her shoulder, and her eyes were wide in bewildered
amazement.
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