now." He turned to me. "Can you hear it, Charlotte? No? How
strange. Perhaps--" He pointed to the corner of the room. "That
paper. Will you--"

I shall always go over that moment. I have thought over it many
times and have wondered at the sequence. Had I not stepped across
the library, what would have happened?

What was it.

I had stooped to pick up the piece of paper. There came a queer,
cracking, snapping sound, almost audible, I have a strange
recollection of Harry standing up by the side of the desk--a
flitting vision. An intuition of some terrible force. It was out
of nothing--nowhere--approaching. I turned about. And I saw it--
the dot of blue.

Blue! That is what it was at first. Blue and burning, like the
flame of a million jewels centred into a needlepoint. On the
ceiling directly above Harry's head. It was scintillating,
coruscating, opalescent; but it was blue most of all. It was the
colour of life and of death; it was burning, throbbing,
concentrated. I tried to scream. But I was frozen with horror. The
dot changed colour and went to a dead-blue. It seemed to grow
larger and to open. Then it turned to white and dropped like a
string of incandescence, touching Harry on the head.

What was it? It was all so sudden. A door flung open and a swish
of rushing silk. A woman! A beautiful girl! The Nervina! It was
she!