She lay without motion, her head and her clasped hands towards the loophole, her thick, clubbed hair hiding her neck.

A woman! Count Hannibal stared, and, fancying he dreamed, closed his eyes, then looked again.

It was no phantasm.

It was the Countess; it was his wife! He drew a deep breath, but he did not speak, though the colour rose slowly to his cheek.

And slowly his eyes devoured her from head to foot, from the hands lying white in the light below the window to the shod feet; unchecked he took his fill of that which he had so much desired--the seeing her! A woman prone, with all of her hidden but her hands: a hundred acquainted with her would not have known her.