Then the man stood aside, and they went
past into the room. A figure was standing there; but for the first
moment they could see no more. Great shadows fled this way and that as
the gaoler hung up the flambeau. Then the door closed again behind
them; and Elizabeth flung herself into her husband's arms.
II
When Marjorie could see him, as at last he put his wife into the single
chair that stood in the cell and gave her the stool, himself sitting
upon the table, she was shocked by the change in his face. It was true
that she had only the wavering light of the flambeau to see him by (for
the single barred window was no more than a pale glimmer on the wall),
yet even that shadowy illumination could not account for his paleness
and his fallen face. He was dressed miserably, too; his clothes were
disordered and rusty-looking; and his features looked out, at once
pinched and elongated. He blinked a little from time to time; his lips
twitched beneath his ill-cut moustache and beard; and little spasms
passed, as he talked, across his whole face. It was pitiful to see him;
and yet more pitiful to hear him talk; for he assumed a kind of
courtesy, mixed with bitterness. Now and again he fell silent, glancing
with a swift and furtive movement of his eyes from one to the other of
his visitors and back again. He attempted to apologise for the
miserableness of the surroundings in which he received them--saying that
her Grace his hostess could not be everywhere at once; and that her
guests must do the best that they could.
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