She
evidently knew the verses by heart, and her eyes were mostly fixed with
that distant smile in them, with which harmonised a constant tremulous
little smile in her lips.
"That is how I would wish to paint her!" I exclaimed within myself; and
scarcely noticed, what struck me on thinking over the scene, that this
strange being read these verses as one might fancy a woman would read
love-verses addressed to herself.
"Those are all written for Alice Oke--Alice the daughter of Virgil
Pomfret," she said slowly, folding up the papers. "I found them at the
bottom of this cabinet. Can you doubt of the reality of Christopher
Lovelock now?"
The question was an illogical one, for to doubt of the existence of
Christopher Lovelock was one thing, and to doubt of the mode of his death
was another; but somehow I did feel convinced.
"Look!" she said, when she had replaced the poems, "I will show you
something else." Among the flowers that stood on the upper storey of her
writing-table--for I found that Mrs. Oke had a writing-table in the yellow
room--stood, as on an altar, a small black carved frame, with a silk
curtain drawn over it: the sort of thing behind which you would have
expected to find a head of Christ or of the Virgin Mary.
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