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The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel by Florence Warden
page 79 of 286 (27%)
in their childhood, almost touched his face. She opened the door and
entered what was evidently the back room of the deserted shop.

A dark room it must have been, even in broadest daylight. Opposite to
the door by which they had entered was one which was glazed in the upper
half; this evidently led into the shop itself, although the old red
curtain which hung over the glass panes hid the view of what was beyond.
There was a little fireplace, in which were the burnt-out ashes of a
recent fire. There was a deal table in the middle of the room, and a
cloth of a common pattern of blue and red check lay in a heap on the
floor. A couple of plain Windsor chairs, and a third with arms and a
cushion, a hearth-rug, a fender and fire-irons, completed the furniture
of the room.

And the one window, a small one, which looked out upon the wharf, in a
corner formed by the outhouse on the one side and a shed on the other,
was carefully boarded up.

Grimly desolate the dark, bare room looked, small as it was; and a
couple of rats, which scurried over the floor as Max entered, added a
suggestion of other horrors to the deserted room. The girl had managed
to get behind Max, and he turned sharply with a suspicion that she meant
to shut him into the room by himself.

"It's all right--it's all right," whispered she, reassuringly. "He isn't
in here. But he's there."

And she pointed to the door with the red curtain.

Max stopped. The farther he advanced into this mysterious house the less
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