In the stillness the sound came again--this time a very, very faint but unmistakable tapping at the glass door.
I jumped up, drew back the curtain, and for a moment stood appalled.
There, outside on the balcony, in the now brilliant moonlight, stood a woman, wrapped in white grave-clothes saturated with water, which dripped on the marble floor, making a pool which trickled slowly down the wet steps.

Attitude and dress and circumstance all conveyed the idea that, though she moved and spoke, she was not quick, but dead.

She was young and very beautiful, but pale, like the grey pallor of death.

Through the still white of her face, which made her look as cold as the wet marble she stood on, her dark eyes seemed to gleam with a strange but enticing lustre.

Even in the unsearching moonlight, which is after all rather deceptive than illuminative, I could not but notice one rare quality of her eyes.