continue on his task to punish and to save, and slowly, very slowly,
with an infinite caution, he turned again the handle of the door
and still very slowly, still with the same infinite caution, he
pushed back the door the merest fraction of an inch at a time so
that not even one watching could have said that it moved.

When he had it once more so far open that he could see within, he
bent forward to look. The girl was beginning her preparations for
the night now. She had assumed a long, comfortable-looking
dressing-gown and, standing in front of the mirror, she had just
finished brushing her hair and was beginning to fasten it up in a
long plait. He could see her face in the mirror; her deep, sad
eyes, swollen with crying, her cheeks still tear-stained, her mouth
yet quivering with barely-repressed emotion.

He was still watching her when, as if growing uneasy, she turned
her head and glanced over her shoulder, and though he moved back
so quickly that she did not catch sight of him, she saw that the
door was open once more.

"What can be the matter with the door?" she exclaimed aloud, and
she crossed the room towards it with a quick and somewhat impatient
movement.

But this time, instead of closing it, she pulled it open and found
herself face to face with Dunn.

He did not speak or move, and she stood staring at him blankly.
Slowly her mouth opened as though to utter a cry that, however,
could not rise above her fluttering throat. Her face had taken on