When she entered the room, the full light of the candles dazzled her for an instant, coming out of the darkness.

They were flaring wildly in the draught that came in through the open door, by which the outer air was admitted; for a moment there seemed no one in the room, and then she saw, with strange sick horror, the legs of some one lying on the carpet behind the table.

As if compelled, even while she shrank from doing it, she went round to see who it was that lay there, so still and motionless as never to stir at her sudden coming.

It was Mr.Dunster; his head propped on chair-cushions, his eyes open, staring, distended.

There was a strong smell of brandy and hartshorn in the room; a smell so powerful as not to be neutralized by the free current of night air that blew through the two open doors.
Ellinor could not have told whether it was reason or instinct that made her act as she did during this awful night.