She again involuntarily looked aside and
shuddered.
'Do you think you can get used to this?' he said. 'Yes or no! Can
you bear such a thing of the charnel-house near you? Judge for
yourself; Barbara. Your Adonis, your matchless man, has come to
this!'
The poor lady stood beside him motionless, save for the restlessness
of her eyes. All her natural sentiments of affection and pity were
driven clean out of her by a sort of panic; she had just the same
sense of dismay and fearfulness that she would have had in the
presence of an apparition. She could nohow fancy this to be her
chosen one--the man she had loved; he was metamorphosed to a
specimen of another species. 'I do not loathe you,' she said with
trembling. 'But I am so horrified--so overcome! Let me recover
myself. Will you sup now? And while you do so may I go to my room
to--regain my old feeling for you? I will try, if I may leave you
awhile? Yes, I will try!'
Without waiting for an answer from him, and keeping her gaze
carefully averted, the frightened woman crept to the door and out of
the room. She heard him sit down to the table, as if to begin
supper though, Heaven knows, his appetite was slight enough after a
reception which had confirmed his worst surmises. When Barbara had
ascended the stairs and arrived in her chamber she sank down, and
buried her face in the coverlet of the bed.
Thus she remained for some time.
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