"I'm Helen Winship--" I faltered. I felt as if I had done something very
wrong.
"Nelly!" she cried, clutching my hands and almost lifting herself on
tiptoe, as she blinked into my eyes in the uncertain light of the outer
hall. "This isn't--can't be--not _our_ Helen Winship--oh, it's some
message from her--some--"
Her voice died away in incoherent mutterings. She drew me into a big hall
like a sitting room behind the small parlour.
"Come into the light, child, whoever you are. I want to look at you," she
said.
An open fire was burning in the grate, and in the room were Milly and
Ethel and white-haired Miss Marcia and a tall, blonde young man.
All rose to their feet, then stopped. There was an awkward pause, the
answering thrill of tense amazement shot from mind to mind like lightning.
They stood as if frozen, gazing. The room was for a moment so still that I
could hear my own quick breathing and the hammering of my heart. I was
grateful for some far shout upon the street that drowned the noise.
"But--you--but--I thought--" Milly began in a half-hushed, awe-struck
whisper; she never finished the sentence, but continued to gaze at me with
big, round eyes, her lips parted, her breath quick and tremulous.
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