The Company
did not pay for it. I collected it myself at a very great personal risk.
I am afraid they will try to claim it as theirs though. H'm. It is a
difficult case. What do you think I ought to do--resist? Eh? I want no
more than justice.' . . . He wanted no more than justice--no more than
justice. I rang the bell before a mahogany door on the first floor, and
while I waited he seemed to stare at me out of the glassy panel--stare
with that wide and immense stare embracing, condemning, loathing all the
universe. I seemed to hear the whispered cry, "The horror! The horror!"
"The dusk was falling. I had to wait in a lofty drawing-room with three
long windows from floor to ceiling that were like three luminous and
bedraped columns. The bent gilt legs and backs of the furniture shone in
indistinct curves. The tall marble fireplace had a cold and monumental
whiteness. A grand piano stood massively in a corner; with dark gleams
on the flat surfaces like a sombre and polished sarcophagus. A high door
opened--closed. I rose.
"She came forward, all in black, with a pale head, floating towards
me in the dusk. She was in mourning. It was more than a year since his
death, more than a year since the news came; she seemed as though she
would remember and mourn forever.
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