It seemed to her that the glimmer of the night-light was dimmed by it.

It was less than a shadow, and it filled her with alarm.

The idea suddenly flashed through her mind that this subtle thing had its origin in the portraits of the dead man.

She had not kept any of them in her bedroom.
But there were still some in the flat, some that she had not torn up.
She carefully reckoned them up, and discovered that there must still be three left: the first, when he was quite young, showed him against a cloudy background; another, laughing and at his ease, sitting astride of a chair; a third as Don Caesar de Bazan.

In her hurry to destroy every vestige of them she sprang out of bed, lit a candle, and in her nightgown shuffled along in her slippers into the drawing-room, until she came to the rosewood table, surmounted by a phoenix palm.