With the morning
twilight Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife's face and recognized
the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat together at the evening
hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and beheld,
flickering with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral hand that wrote
mortality where he would fain have worshipped. Georgiana soon learned
to shudder at his gaze. It needed but a glance with the peculiar
expression that his face often wore to change the roses of her cheek
into a deathlike paleness, amid which the crimson hand was brought
strongly out, like a bas-relief of ruby on the whitest marble.
Late one night, when the lights were growing dim so as hardly to betray
the stain on the poor wife's cheek, she herself, for the first time,
voluntarily took up the subject.
"Do you remember, my dear Aylmer," said she, with a feeble attempt at
a smile, "have you any recollection, of a dream last night about this
odious hand?"
"None! none whatever!" replied Aylmer, starting; but then he added,
in a dry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the real depth
of his emotion, "I might well dream of it; for, before I fell asleep,
it had taken a pretty firm hold of my fancy.
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