Book Description

Love Among the Ruins Anon she rose softly, turned towards the mirror hanging on the wall, gazed into its depths with a species of bewitched fear. One glance given, she turned away with a shudder, hid her face in her hands, walked the room in a mute frenzy of self-horror. Presently she knelt again before the window-seat, struggled in prayer, turning her face piteously to an open casement where the golden woods stood under the red wand of the west. The light waned a little. She rose up again from her knees, shook her hair forward so that it bathed her face, trod slowly towards the mirror, stared at herself therein. The crystal bowl was broken, the ivory throne dishonoured! The blush of the rose had faded, the gleam of the opal fallen to dust. Youth and its sapphire shield had passed into the gloom of dreams. The stars and the moon were magical no more. She wavered away from the window to a dark corner, hid her face in the arras. The same wild cry rang like a piteous requiem through her brain. The man lived and loved her, and she had come to this! Burning Gilderoy had stolen her beauty, made her a mockery of her very self. God, that Fate should compel her to lift her scars to the eyes of love! In the gathering dusk, she went again to the mirror, peered therein, with strained eyes and a tremor of the lip. The twilight softened somewhat the bitterness of truth. She shook her hair forward, saw her eyes gleam, fingered her white throat, and smiled a little. Presently she lit a taper, held it with wavering hand, peered at the steel panel once again. She cried out, jerked away, and crushed the frail light under her foot. Darkness increased, seeming to clothe her misery. She wandered through the room, twisting her black hair about her wrist, moaning and darting piteous glances into the gloom. Once she took a poniard from a table, fingered the point, pressed her hand over her heart, threw the knife away with a gesture of despair. On the morrow the man would come to her. What would she see in those grey eyes of his? Horror and loathing, ah God, not that! Anon she grew calmer and less distressed, prayed awhile, lit a lamp, delved in an ambry built in the wall. That night her hands worked zealously, while the moon shimmered on the mere, setting silver wrinkles on its agate face. The woods were still and solemn as death, deep with the voiceless sympathy of the hour. Black lace hung upon Yeoland's hands; the sable thread ran through and through; her white fingers quivered in the light of the lamp. Her few hours of sleep that night were wild and feverish, smitten through with piteous dreams. On the morrow she bound a black fillet about her brows, and let the dusky mask of lace fall over face and bosom. She prayed a long while before her crucifix, but she did not gaze again into dead Duessa's mirror.