Over this doorway hung the usual screen of green matting.
Now these screens act as screens, are as impenetrable to the eye as a
door--so long as there is no light behind them. But place a light behind
them and they become transparent. This was what Violet Oliver had done.
She had lit her candle and at once a part of the interior of her tent was
visible to her maid as she lay in bed.
The maid saw the table and the sealed parcel upon it. Then she saw Mrs.
Oliver come to the table, break the seals, open the parcel, take out a
jewel case--a jewel case which the maid knew well--and carry it and the
parcel out of sight. Mrs. Oliver crossed to a corner of the room where
her trunks lay; and the next moment the maid heard a key grate in a lock.
For a little while the candle still burned, and every now and then a
distorted shadow was flung upon the wall of the tent within the maid's
vision. It seemed to her that Mrs. Oliver was sitting at a little writing
table which stood close by the trunk. Then the light went out again. The
maid would have thought no more of this incident, but on entering the
room next morning with a cup of tea, she was surprised to see the packet
once more sealed and fastened on the centre table.
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