A tall shadow--no shadow either, but the very person of Godfrey
Wardour--passed the opening in the wall of the hut where once had
been a window, and the gloom it cast into the dusk within was
awful and ominous. The moment he saw it, Tom threw himself flat
on the clay floor of the hut. Godfrey stopped at the doorless
entrance, and stood on the threshold, bending his head to clear
the lintel as he looked in. Letty's heart seemed to vanish from
her body. A strange feeling shook her, as if some mysterious
transformation were about to pass upon her whole frame, and she
were about to be changed into some one of the lower animals. The
question, where was the harm, late so triumphantly put, seemed to
have no heart in it now. For a moment that had to Letty the air
of an aeon, Godfrey stood peering.
Not a little to his displeasure, he had heard from his mother of
her refusal to grant Letty's request, and had set out in the hope
of meeting and helping her home, for by that time it had begun to
rain, and looked stormy.
In the darkness he saw something white, and, as he gazed, it grew
to Letty's face. The strange, scared, ghastly expression of it
bewildered him.
Letty became aware that Godfrey did not recognize her at first,
and the hope sprung up in her heart that he might not see Tom at
all; but she could not utter a word, and stood returning
Godfrey's gaze like one fascinated with terror.
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