"
The chalet stood on a little clearing, in a little circle of pines. From
it the ground sloped down towards the valley, and at some distance
beneath smoke curled from a house lost amid clouds of foliage, the
abounding green life of this damp and brooding hollow. A great window
looking down the woodside filled one side of the chalet, and the others
were dark with books, an occasional picture or figured jar lighting up
the shadow. A small fire flickered beneath a quaintly devised mantel,
though it was summer--for the mists crept up the hill at night and
chilled the souls of the books. A great old bureau, with a wonderful
belly of mahogany, filled a corner of the room, breathing antique
mystery and refinement. At one end of it, on a small vacant space of
wall, hung a cast, apparently the death-mask of a woman, by which the
eye was immediately attracted with something of a shock and held by a
curious fascination. The face was smiling, a smile of great peace, and
also of a strange cunning. One other characteristic it had: the woman
looked as though at any moment she would suddenly open her eyes, and if
you turned away from her and looked again, she seemed to be smiling to
herself because she had opened them that moment behind your back, and
just closed them again in time.
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