And
all that night I lay on a common bench in the wind-tossed and dismal
Park.
* * * * *
The first thing which I did when the sun was up was to return to that
place: and I returned with hard and masterful brow.
Approaching Peters' house I saw now, what the darkness had hidden from
me, that on his balcony was someone--quite alone there. The balcony is a
slight open-work wrought-iron structure, connected to a small roof by
three slender voluted pillars, two at the ends, one in the middle: and
at the middle one I saw someone, a woman--kneeling--her arms clasped
tight about the pillar, and her face rather upward-looking. Never did I
see aught more horrid: there were the gracious curves of the woman's
bust and hips still well preserved in a clinging dress of red cloth,
very faded now; and her reddish hair floated loose in a large flimsy
cloud about her; but her face, in that exposed position, had been quite
eaten away by the winds to a noseless skeleton, which grinned from ear
to ear, with slightly-dropped under-jaw--most horrid in contrast with
the body, and frame of hair.
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