magnetism more potent than either horror or fear.




CHAPTER IX.


What a strange and awful face it was!--what a thing of distorted
passion and pain! What an agony was expressed in every line of the
features!--agony in which the traces of a divine beauty lingered
only to render the whole countenance more repellent and terrific!
A kind of sentient solemnity, mingled with wrath and terror,
glared from the painted eyes,--the lips, slightly parted in a
cruel upward curve, seemed about to utter a shriek of menace,--the
hair, drooping in black, thick clusters low on the brow, looked
wet as with the dews of the rigor mortis,--and to add to the
mysterious horror of the whole conception, the distinct outline of
a death's-head was seen plainly through the rose-brown flesh-
tints. There was no real resemblance in this horrible picture to
the radiant and glowing loveliness of the Princess Ziska, yet, at
the same time, there was sufficient dim likeness to make an
imaginative person think it might be possible for her to assume
that appearance in death. Several minutes passed in utter
silence,--then Lord Fulkeward suddenly rose.

"I'm going!" he said. "It's a beastly thing; it makes me sick!"

"Grand merci!" said Gervase with a forced smile.