Explore "The Shadow of the Rope" by E.W. Hornung on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The immediate ordeal proved less trying than Langholm was prepared to find it. His vivid imagination had pictured the long table, laid for six-and-twenty, with four persons huddled at one end; but the telegrams had come in time to have the table reduced to its normal size, and Langholm found a place set for him between Mrs. Woodgate and Mrs. Steel. He was only embarrassed when Rachel rose and looked him in the eyes before holding out her hand.
"Have you heard? " she asked him, in a voice as cold as her marble face, but similarly redeemed and animated by its delicate and distant scorn.