Trifling as it at
first appeared, it so connected itself with innumerable trains of
thought and modes of feeling that it became the central point of all.
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."
"And you did dream of it?" continued Georgiana, hastily; for she
dreaded lest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say.
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