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670 he did not observe that, from some obliquity of vision, or want of the normal correspondence between will and muscle, his hand twice missed the knocker—wandering first above, then below it; and that, when actually in his clasp, he did not feel the solid iron: the sense of touch seemed suspended. Bridgett appeared. "Mistress is come back, and will see you."

Jasper did not look charmed; he winced, but screwed up his courage, and mounted the stairs—slowly—heavily. From the landing-place above glared down the dark shining eyes that had almost quailed his bold spirit nearly six years before; and almost in the same words as then, a voice as exulting, but less stern, said, "So you come at last to me, Jasper Losely—you are come!" Rapidly—flittingly, with a step noiseless as a specter's, Arabella Crane descended the stairs; but she did not, as when he first sought that house in years before, grasp his hand or gaze into his face. Rather, it was with a shrinking avoidance of his touch—with something like a shudder—that she glided by him into the open drawing-room, beckoning to him to follow. He halted a moment; he felt a longing to retreat—to fly the house; his superstitious awe of her very benefits came back to him more strongly than ever. But her help at the moment was necessary to his very hope to escape all future need of her, and, though with a vague foreboding of unconjecturable evil, he stepped into the room, and the door closed on both.