Joanna slunk into the deep shadow at one side of the steps.
"Is it necessary for you to annoy me by rapping on my door as well as by spying on me ?" asked the missionary in a tone of weary remonstrance.
The guards laughed and turned their backs with added insolence.

In that second Joanna shot like a black spirit of the night straight past the missionary's legs and collapsed in a bundle on the floor behind him.
"Shut the door, sahib!" she hissed at him.

"Quick! Shut the door!" He shut it and bolted it, half recognizing something in the voice or else guided by instinct.
"Joanna!" he exclaimed, holding up a lamp above her.

"You, Joanna!" At the name, Rosemary McClean came running out--looked for an instant--and then knelt by the old woman.
"Father, bring some water, please, quickly!" The missionary went in search of a water-jar, and Rosemary McClean bent down above the ancient, shrivelled, sorry-looking mummy of a woman--drew the wrinkled head into her lap--stroked the drawn face--and wept over her.

The spent, age-weakened, dried-out widow had fainted; there was no wakened self-consciousness of black and white to interfere.