Some grisly fear, some staring horror had met her in this strange retreat.

Simple grief speaks with a different language from that which I read in her distorted features and tottering, slowly creeping form.

What had happened above?
She had escaped me to run upon what?
My lips refused to ask, my limbs refused to move, and if I breathed at all, I did so with such fierceness of restraint that her eyes never turned my way, not even when she had reached the lowest step and paused for a moment there, oscillating in pain or uncertainty.

Her face was turned more fully towards me now, and I had just begun to discern something in it besides its tragic beauty, when she made a quick move and blew out the candle she held.

One moment that magical picture of superhuman loveliness, then darkness, I might say silence, for I do not think either of us so much as stirred for several instants.