Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/27

Rh She had smeared her countenance with her fingers; all down one side of her face was a crimson stain.

"Look," I cried, "at what you've done!"

"What have I done?"

"What's on your hands?"

"My hands? What is on my hands?"

She held out her hands in front of her, staring at them with the most innocent air in the world.

"It's blood."

"Blood? Where has it come from?"

She asked the question as a child might do. In spite of her blood-stained face, the ring of truth which was in her voice, the unspoken appeal which was in her eyes, went to my heart.

"Try to think where you've come from, and what you have been doing?"

"Think? I can't think."

"But you must! Don't you see you're all covered with blood?"

"All covered with blood? Why, so I am! Oh!"

She gave a little cry which was more than half a sob. She swayed to and fro. Before I could reach her she had fallen to the ground. I found her lying as if she were dead. She had swooned.

This was a pretty plight which I was in. I have had but little experience of feminine society.