"Take care not to approach him too closely, dear, because he bites." Then they went upstairs, Maggie groping her way and stumbling at the sharp corners.

The darkness grew; she knocked her knee on the corner of something, cried out, and a suddenly opened door threw a pale green light upon a big picture of men in armour attacking a fortified town beneath a thundery sky.

This picture wavered and faltered, hung as it was upon a thin cord strained to breaking-point.

Maggie reached the security of the room beyond the passage, her shoulders bent a little as though she expected to near at every instant the crashing collapse of the armoured men.

Her eyes unused to the light, she stumbled into the room, fell into some one's arms, felt that her poor hat was crooked and her cheeks burning, and then was rebuked, as it seemed, by the piercing cry of Edward the parrot from the very bowels of the house.
She stammered something to the man who had held her and then let her go.