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The Interval by Vincent O'Sullivan · The Best Ghost Stories

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  Speaker 1: Section twelve of the Best Ghost Stories. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Read by Winnifred Asman, The Best Ghost Stories, The Interval
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  Speaker 1: by Vincent O'Sullivan from the Boston Evening Transcript. Missus Wilton
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  Speaker 1: passed through a little alley leading from one of the
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  Speaker 1: gates which are around Regent's Park, and came out on
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  Speaker 1: the wide and quiet street. She walked along slowly, peering
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  Speaker 1: anxiously from side to side so as not to overlook
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  Speaker 1: the number. She pulled her furs closer round her. After
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  Speaker 1: her years in India, this London damp seemed very harsh still.
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  Speaker 1: It was not a fog to day. A dense haze,
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  Speaker 1: gray and tinged ruddy lay between the houses, sometimes blowing
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  Speaker 1: with a little wet kiss against the face. Missus Wilton's
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  Speaker 1: hair and eyelashes, and her furs were powdered with tiny drops,
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  Speaker 1: but there was nothing in the weather to blur the sight.
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  Speaker 1: She could see the faces of people some distance off,
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  Speaker 1: and read the signs on the shops. Before the door
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  Speaker 1: of a dealer in antiques and second hand furniture. She
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  Speaker 1: paused and looked through the shabby, uncleaned window at an
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  Speaker 1: unassorted heap of things, many of them of great value.
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  Speaker 1: She read the Polish name fastened on the pane with
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  Speaker 1: white letters. Yes, this is the place. She opened the door,
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  Speaker 1: which met her entrance with an ill tempered jangle. From
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  Speaker 1: somewhere in the black depths of the shop, the dealer
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  Speaker 1: came forward. He had a clammy white face with a
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  Speaker 1: sparse black beard, and wore a skull cap and spectacles.
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  Speaker 1: Missus Wilton spoke to him in a low voice. A
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  Speaker 1: look of complicity, cunning, perhaps of irony, passed through the
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  Speaker 1: dealer's cynical and sad eyes, but he bowed gravely and respectfully. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: she is here, madam. Whether she will see you or not,
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  Speaker 1: I do not know. She is not always well. She
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  Speaker 1: has her moods, and then we have to be so careful.
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  Speaker 1: The police, not that they would touch a lady like you,
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  Speaker 1: But the poor alien has not much chance these days.
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  Speaker 1: Missus Wilton followed him to the back of the shop,
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  Speaker 1: where there was a winding staircase. She knocked over a
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  Speaker 1: few things in her passage and stooped to pick them up,
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  Speaker 1: but the dealer kept muttering, It does not matter, surely,
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  Speaker 1: it does not matter. He lit a candle. You must
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  Speaker 1: go up these stairs. They are very dark. Be careful.
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  Speaker 1: When you come to a door, open it and go
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  Speaker 1: straight in. He stood at the foot of the stairs,
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  Speaker 1: holding the light high above his head, and she ascended.
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  Speaker 1: The room was not very large, and it seemed very ordinary.
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  Speaker 1: There were some flimsy, uncomfortable chairs in gilt and red.
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  Speaker 1: Two large palms were in corners. Under a glass cover.
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  Speaker 1: On the table was a view of Rome. The room
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  Speaker 1: had not a business like look, thought Missus Wilton. There
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  Speaker 1: was no suggestion of the office or waiting room where
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  Speaker 1: people came and went all day. Yet you would not
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  Speaker 1: say that it was a private room which was lived in.
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  Speaker 1: There were no books or papers about. Every chair was
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  Speaker 1: in the place it had been placed when the room
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  Speaker 1: was last swept. There was no fire, and it was
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  Speaker 1: very cold. To the right of the window was a
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  Speaker 1: door covered with a plush curtain. Missus Wilton sat down
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  Speaker 1: near the table and watched this door. He thought it
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  Speaker 1: must be through it that the soothsayer would come forth.
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  Speaker 1: She laid her hands listlessly. One on top of the
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  Speaker 1: other on the table. This must be the tenth seer
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  Speaker 1: she had consulted since Hugh had been killed, she thought
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  Speaker 1: them over. No, this must be the eleventh. She had
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  Speaker 1: forgotten that frightening man in Paris who said he had
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  Speaker 1: been a priest. Yet, of them all, it was only
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  Speaker 1: he who had told her anything definite. But even he
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  Speaker 1: could do no more than tell the past. He told
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  Speaker 1: of her marriage, He even had the duration of it right,
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  Speaker 1: twenty one months. He told too, of their time in India.
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  Speaker 1: At least he knew that her husband had been a soldier,
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  Speaker 1: and he said he had been on service in the colonies.
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  Speaker 1: On the whole, though he had been as unsatisfactory as
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  Speaker 1: the others, none of them had given her the consolation
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  Speaker 1: she sought. She did not want to be told the past.
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  Speaker 1: If Hugh was gone forever, then with him had gone
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  Speaker 1: all her love of living, her courage, all her betterself.
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  Speaker 1: She wanted to be lifted out of the despair, the dazed, aimless,
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  Speaker 1: drifting from day to day, longing at night for the
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  Speaker 1: morning and in the morning for the fall of night,
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  Speaker 1: which had been her life since his death. If somebody
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  Speaker 1: could assure her that it was not all over, that
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  Speaker 1: he was somewhere not too far away, unchanged from what
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  Speaker 1: he had been here, with his crisp hair and rather
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  Speaker 1: slow smile and lean brown face, that he saw her sometimes,
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  Speaker 1: that he had not forgotten her, Oh, Hugh Darling. When
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  Speaker 1: she looked up again, the woman was sitting there before her.
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  Speaker 1: Missus Wilton had not heard her come in. With her
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  Speaker 1: experience wide enough now of seers and fortune tellers of
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  Speaker 1: all kinds, she saw at once that this woman different
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  Speaker 1: from the others. She was used to the quick appraising look,
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  Speaker 1: the attempts, sometimes clumsy, but often cleverly disguised, to collect
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  Speaker 1: some fragments of information, whereupon to erect a plausible vision.
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  Speaker 1: But this woman looked as if she took it out
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  Speaker 1: of herself. Not that her appearance suggested intercourse with the
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  Speaker 1: spiritual world more than the others had done. It suggested that,
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  Speaker 1: in fact, considerably less. Some of the others were frail, yearning,
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  Speaker 1: evaporated creatures, and the ex priest in Paris had something
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  Speaker 1: terrible and condemned in his look. He might well sup
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  Speaker 1: with the devil that man, and probably did in some
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  Speaker 1: way or other. But this was a little fat, weary
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  Speaker 1: faced woman about fifty, who only did not look like
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  Speaker 1: a cook because she looked more like sempstress. Her black
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  Speaker 1: dress was all covered with white threads. Missus Wilton looked
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  Speaker 1: at her with some embarrassment. It seemed more reasonable to
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  Speaker 1: be asking a woman like this about altering a gown
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  Speaker 1: than about intercourse with the dead. That seemed even absurd
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  Speaker 1: in such a very commonplace presence. The woman seemed timid
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  Speaker 1: and oppressed. She breathed heavily and kept rubbing her dingy hands,
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  Speaker 1: which looked moist one over the other. She was always
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  Speaker 1: wetting her lips and coughed with a little dry cough.
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  Speaker 1: But in her these signs of nervous exhaustion suggested overwork
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  Speaker 1: in a close atmosphere, bending too close over the sewing machine,
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  Speaker 1: Her uninteresting hair, like a rat's pelt, was eaked out
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  Speaker 1: with a false edition of another color. Some threads had
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  Speaker 1: got into her hair too. Her harried, uneasy look caused
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  Speaker 1: missus Wilton to ask compassionately, are you much worried by
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  Speaker 1: the police? Oh, the police? Why don't they us alone?
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  Speaker 1: You never know who comes to see you? Why don't
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  Speaker 1: they leave me alone? I'm a good woman. I only
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  Speaker 1: think what I do, is no harm to any one,
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  Speaker 1: she continued in an uneven, querulous voice, always rubbing her
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  Speaker 1: hands together nervously. She seemed to the visitor to be
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  Speaker 1: talking at random, just gabbling, like children do sometimes before
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  Speaker 1: they fall asleep. I wanted to explain hesitated, missus Wilton,
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  Speaker 1: But the woman, with her head pressed close against the
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  Speaker 1: back of the chair, was staring beyond her at the wall.
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  Speaker 1: Her face had lost whatever little expression it had. It
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  Speaker 1: was blank and stupid. When she spoke, it was very slowly,
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  Speaker 1: and her voice was guttural. Can't you see him? It
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  Speaker 1: seems strange to me that you can't see him. He
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  Speaker 1: is so near you. He is passing his arm round
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  Speaker 1: your shoulders. This was a frequent gesture of Hughes, and indeed,
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  Speaker 1: at that moment she felt that somebody was very near her,
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  Speaker 1: bending over her. She was enveloped in tenderness. Only a
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  Speaker 1: very thin veil, she felt prevented her from seeing. But
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  Speaker 1: the woman saw. She was describing Hugh minutely, even the
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  Speaker 1: little things like the burn on his right hand. Is
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  Speaker 1: he happy? Oh? Ask him? Does he love me? The
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  Speaker 1: result was so far beyond anything she had hoped for
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  Speaker 1: that she was stunned, she could only stammer the first
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  Speaker 1: thing that came into her head. Does he love me?
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  Speaker 1: He loves you? He won't answer, but he loves you.
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  Speaker 1: He wants me to make you see him. He is disappointed,
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  Speaker 1: I think, because I can't. But I can't unless you
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  Speaker 1: do it yourself. After a while, she said, I think
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  Speaker 1: you will see him again. You think of nothing else.
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  Speaker 1: He is very close to us now. Then she collapsed
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  Speaker 1: and fell into a heavy sleep and lay there motionless,
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  Speaker 1: hardly breathing. Missus Wilton put some notes on the table
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  Speaker 1: and stole out on tiptoe. She seemed to remember that downstairs,
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  Speaker 1: in the dark shop, the dealer with the waxen face
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  Speaker 1: detained her to show some old silver and jewelry and
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  Speaker 1: such like, But she did not come to herself. She
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  Speaker 1: had no precise recollection of anything till she found herself
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  Speaker 1: entering a church near Portland Place. It was an unlikely
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  Speaker 1: act in her normal moments. Why did she go in there?
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  Speaker 1: She acted like one walking in her sleep. The church
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  Speaker 1: was old and dim, with high black pews. There was
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  Speaker 1: nobody there. Missus Wilton sat down in one of the
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  Speaker 1: pews and bent forward with her face in her hands.
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  Speaker 1: After a few minutes she saw that a soldier had
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  Speaker 1: come in noiselessly and placed himself about half a dozen
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  Speaker 1: roads ahead of her. He never turned round, but presently
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  Speaker 1: she was struck by some familiar in the figure. First
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  Speaker 1: she thought vaguely that the soldier looked like her Hugh.
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  Speaker 1: Then when he put up his hand, she saw who
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  Speaker 1: it was. She hurried out of the pew and ran
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  Speaker 1: towards him. Oh, Hugh, Hugh, have you come back. He
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  Speaker 1: looked round with a smile. He had not been killed.
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  Speaker 1: It was all a mistake. He was going to speak.
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  Speaker 1: Footsteps sounded hollow in the empty church. She turned and
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  Speaker 1: glanced down the dem mile. It was an old sexton
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  Speaker 1: or verger who approached. I thought I heard you call,
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  Speaker 1: He said, I was speaking to my husband. But Hugh
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  Speaker 1: was nowhere to be seen. He was here a moment ago.
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  Speaker 1: She looked about in anguish. He must have gone to
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  Speaker 1: the door. There's nobody here, said the old man gently,
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  Speaker 1: only you and me. Ladies are often to and funny
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  Speaker 1: since the war. There was one in here yesterday afternoon.
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  Speaker 1: Said she was married in this church, and her husband
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  Speaker 1: had promised to meet her here. Perhaps she were married here, no,
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  Speaker 1: said missus Wilton, desolately, I was married in India. It
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  Speaker 1: might have been two or three days after that when
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  Speaker 1: she went into a small Italian restaurant in the Bayswater district.
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  Speaker 1: She often went out for her meals. Now she had
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  Speaker 1: developed an exhausting cough, and she found that it somehow
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  Speaker 1: became less troublesome when she was in a public place
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  Speaker 1: looking at strange faces. In her flat there were all
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  Speaker 1: the things that Hugh had used. The trunks and bags
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  Speaker 1: still had his name on them, with the labels of
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  Speaker 1: places where they had been together. They were like stabs.
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  Speaker 1: In the restaurant, people came and went, many soldiers too,
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  Speaker 1: among them, just glancing at her in her corner. This day,
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  Speaker 1: as it chanced, she was rather late, and there was
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  Speaker 1: nobody there. She was very tired. She nibbled at the
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  Speaker 1: food they brought her. She could almost have cried from
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  Speaker 1: tiredness and loneliness in the ache in her heart. And
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  Speaker 1: suddenly he was before her, sitting there opposite at the table.
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  Speaker 1: It was as it was in the days of their engagement,
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  Speaker 1: when they used sometimes to lunch at restaurants. He was
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  Speaker 1: not in uniform. He smiled at her and urged her
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  Speaker 1: to eat just as he used in those days. I
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  Speaker 1: met her that afternoon as she was crossing Kensington Gardens,
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  Speaker 1: and she told me about it. I have been with Hugh.
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  Speaker 1: She seemed most happy. Did he say anything? No, yes,
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  Speaker 1: I think he did, but I could not quite hear.
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  Speaker 1: My head was so very tired the next time. I
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  Speaker 1: did not see her for some time after that she
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  Speaker 1: found I think that by going to places where she
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  Speaker 1: had once seen him, the old church, the little restaurant,
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  Speaker 1: she was more certain to see him again. She never
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  Speaker 1: saw him at home, but in the street or the
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  Speaker 1: park he would often walk along beside her. Once he
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  Speaker 1: saved her from being run over. She said she actually
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  Speaker 1: felt his hand grabbing her arm suddenly, when the car
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  Speaker 1: was nearly upon her. She had given me the address
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  Speaker 1: of the clairvoyant. And it is through that strange woman
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  Speaker 1: that I know, or seem to know what followed. Missus
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  Speaker 1: Wilton was not exactly ill last winter, not so ill
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  Speaker 1: at least as to keep to her bedroom. But she
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  Speaker 1: was very thin, and her great handsome eyes always seemed
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  Speaker 1: to be staring at some point beyond searching. There was
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  Speaker 1: a look in them that seamen's eyes sometimes have when
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  Speaker 1: they are drawing on a coast of which they are
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  Speaker 1: not very certain. She lived almost in solitude. She hardly
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  Speaker 1: ever saw anybody, except when they sought her out. To
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  Speaker 1: those who were anxious about her, she laughed and said
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  Speaker 1: she was very well. One sunny morning, she was lying awake,
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  Speaker 1: waiting for the maid to bring her tea. The shy
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  Speaker 1: London sunlight peeped through the blinds. The room had a
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  Speaker 1: fresh and happy look. When she heard the door open,
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  Speaker 1: she thought that the maid had come in. Then she
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  Speaker 1: saw that Hugh was standing at the foot of the bed.
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  Speaker 1: He was in uniform this time, and looked as he
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  Speaker 1: had looked the day he went away. Oh, Hugh, speak
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  Speaker 1: to me, Will you not say just one word? He
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  Speaker 1: smiled and threw back his head, just as he used
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  Speaker 1: to in the old days at her mother's house. When
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  Speaker 1: he wanted to call her out of the room without
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  Speaker 1: attracting the attention of the others, He moved towards the door,
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  Speaker 1: still signing to her to follow him. He picked up
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  Speaker 1: her slippers on his way and held them out to her,
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  Speaker 1: as if he wanted her to put them on. She
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  Speaker 1: slipped out of bed hastily. It is strange that when
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  Speaker 1: they came to look through her things after her death,
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  Speaker 1: the slippers could never be found. End of section twelve.