"Here I am, Maggie," he said. "And let's get out of this as quick as
we can."
"I must go and say good-night to the aunts," she said.
She went upstairs to Aunt Anne's bedroom. Entering it was always to
her like passing into a shadowed church after the hot sunshine--the
long, thin room with high slender windows, the long hard bed, of the
most perfect whiteness and neatness, the heavy black-framed picture
of "The Ascension" over the bed, and the utter stillness broken by
no sound of clock or bell--even the fire seemed frozen into a glassy
purity in the grate.
Her aunt was sitting, as so often Maggie found her, in a stiff-
backed chair, her hands folded on her lap, staring in front of her.
Her eyes were like the open eyes of a dead woman; it was as though,
with a great effort of almost desperate concentration, she were
driving her vision against some obstinate world of opposition, and
the whole of life had meanwhile stayed to watch the issue.
A thin pale light from some street lamp lay, a faintly golden
shadow, across the white ceiling.
Maggie stood by the door.
"I've come to say good-night, aunt.
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