Then it was gone.
She did not answer, but rose from the big chair, and went to the
window, and stood with her back toward him, looking out over the
river. And then, suddenly, they heard a voice. It was the voice he
had heard twice in his sickness, the voice that had roused him
from his sleep last night, crying out in his room for Black Roger
Audemard. It came to him distinctly through the open door in a low
and moaning monotone. He had not taken his eyes from the slim
figure of St. Pierre's wife, and he saw a little tremor pass
through her now.
"I heard that voice--again--last night," said David. "It was in
this cabin, asking for Black Roger Audemard."
She did not seem to hear him, and he also turned so that he was
looking at the open door of the cabin.
The sun, pouring through in a golden flood, was all at once
darkened, and in the doorway--framed vividly against the day--was
the figure of a man. A tense breath came to Carrigan's lips. At
first he felt a shock, then an overwhelming sense of curiosity and
of pity. The man was terribly deformed. His back and massive
shoulders were so twisted and bent that he stood no higher than a
twelve-year-old boy; yet standing straight, he would have been six
feet tall if an inch, and splendidly proportioned.
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