"May I go upstairs?" was all he said.
The rector led the way up a small cottage staircase. His sister, a
grey-haired woman of rather more than middle age, spectacled and prim,
but with the eyes of the pure in heart, heard them on the stairs and came
out to meet them.
"She is quite ready, and I am in the next room, if you want me. Please
knock on the wall."
Buntingford entered and shut the door. He stood at the foot of the bed.
The woman lying on it opened her eyes, and they looked at each other long
and silently. The face on the pillow had still the remains of beauty. The
powerful mouth and chin, the nose, which was long and delicate, the
deep-set eyes, and broad brow under strong waves of hair, were all fused
in a fine oval; and the modelling of the features was intensely and
passionately expressive. That indeed was at once the distinction and, so
to speak, the terror of the face,--its excessive, abnormal individualism,
its surplus of expression. A woman to fret herself and others to decay--a
woman, to burn up her own life, and that of her lover, her husband, her
child.
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