Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/29

Rh come from I could not tell; it was hardly the kind of thing to have fallen from a woman's pocket. I picked it up. It was a photograph of Edwin Lawrence; I could not help but recognise the likeness directly I raised it. Back and front it was smeared with blood. Actuated by an impulse for which I did not attempt to account, rising, I thrust it between the leaves of a book which was on the mantelshelf. She moved. Turning, I found that she had raised herself a little and was looking at me with her eyes wide open.

"What is the matter with me? Have I been asleep?"

Her frank, fearless gaze, with, in it, that strange look of bewilderment, filled me with a sudden sense of confusion. I stammered a reply.

"You have not been very well. But you are better now. Let me help you to get up."

I held out my hand. Putting hers into it, she rose to her feet with a little spring. When she took her hand away, on mine there was a ruddy smirch. The condition of her plum-coloured garment, and of the bright green ribbons, seemed to have become more conspicuous even than before.

"Hadn't you better take off your cloak?"

She looked at me as if amazed.

"Take off my cloak? Why should I?"

"You will be more comfortable without it"