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Well, yes! But then?
That then was terror-striking.
There was a woman who desired him! If so, let no one ever again
pronounce the word incredible! A woman desire him! A woman who had seen
his face! A woman who was not blind! And who was this woman? An ugly
one? No; a beauty. A gipsy? No; a duchess!
What was it all about, and what could it all mean? What peril in such a
triumph! And how was he to help plunging into it headlong?
What! that woman! The siren, the apparition, the lady in the visionary
box, the light in the darkness! It was she! Yes; it was she!
The crackling of the fire burst out in every part of his frame. It was
the strange, unknown lady, she who had previously so troubled his
thoughts; and his first tumultuous feelings about this woman returned,
heated by the evil fire. Forgetfulness is nothing but a palimpsest: an
incident happens unexpectedly, and all that was effaced revives in the
blanks of wondering memory.
Gwynplaine thought that he had dismissed that image from his
remembrance, and he found that it was still there; and she had put her
mark in his brain, unconsciously guilty of a dream. Without his
suspecting it, the lines of the engraving had been bitten deep by
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