By the glow of a night lantern within the sleeping room, Tomozo was able to perceive that his master and a strange woman were talking together under the mosquito-net. At first he could not see the woman distinctly. Her back was turned to him ; he only observed that she was very slim, and that she appeared to be very young, judging from the fashion of her dress and hair. Putting his ear to the chink, he could hear the conversation plainly.
Then he determined at all hazards to get one glimpse of her face ; and he crept round the house, backwards and forwards, peering through every crack and chink. And at last he was able to see ; but therewith an icy trembling seized him ; and the hair of his head stood up.
For the face was the face of a woman long dead, and the fingers caressing were fingers of naked bone, and of the body below the waist there was not anything: it melted off into thinnest trailing shadow.
From A Passional Karma