The blood and the ugly wriggling fascinated Rachel, so
that although she knew that some one had come up behind and was standing
beside her, she did not turn round until the old woman had settled down
on the bench beside the others. Then she looked up sharply, because of
the ugliness of what she had seen. It was Miss Allan who stood beside
her.
"Not a pretty sight," said Miss Allan, "although I daresay it's really
more humane than our method. . . . I don't believe you've ever been in
my room," she added, and turned away as if she meant Rachel to follow
her. Rachel followed, for it seemed possible that each new person might
remove the mystery which burdened her.
The bedrooms at the hotel were all on the same pattern, save that some
were larger and some smaller; they had a floor of dark red tiles;
they had a high bed, draped in mosquito curtains; they had each a
writing-table and a dressing-table, and a couple of arm-chairs. But
directly a box was unpacked the rooms became very different, so that
Miss Allan's room was very unlike Evelyn's room. There were no variously
coloured hatpins on her dressing-table; no scent-bottles; no narrow
curved pairs of scissors; no great variety of shoes and boots; no silk
petticoats lying on the chairs. The room was extremely neat. There
seemed to be two pairs of everything. The writing-table, however,
was piled with manuscript, and a table was drawn out to stand by the
arm-chair on which were two separate heaps of dark library books, in
which there were many slips of paper sticking out at different degrees
of thickness.
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