He did not speak or move, and she stood staring at him blankly.
Slowly her mouth opened as though to utter a cry that, however,
could not rise above her fluttering throat. Her face had taken on
the pallor of death, her great eyes showed the awful fear she felt.
Still without speaking, Dunn stepped forward into the room and,
closing the door, stood with his back to it.
She shrank away and put her hand upon a chair, but for the support
of which she must certainly have fallen, for her limbs were
trembling so violently they gave her little support.
"Don't hurt me," she panted.
In truth he presented a strange and terrifying appearance. The
unkempt hair that covered his face and through which his keen eyes
glowed like fire, gave him an unusual and formidable aspect. In
one hand he held the ugly-looking jemmy he had taken from the
burglar, and the new clothes he had donned, ill-fitting and soiled,
served to accentuate the ungainliness of his form.
The frightened girl was not even sure that he was human, and she
shrank yet further away from him till she sank down upon the bed,
dizzy with fear and almost swooning.
As yet he had not spoken, for his eyes had gone to the mantlepiece
on which he saw that the photograph signed with the name "Charley
Wright," did not now stand upright, but had fallen forward on its
face so that one could no longer see what it represented.
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