CHAPTER III.

PARADISE REGAINED BELOW.

He saw Dea. She had just raised herself up on the mattress. She had on a

long white dress, carefully closed, and showing only the delicate form

of her neck. The sleeves covered her arms; the folds, her feet. The

branch-like tracery of blue veins, hot and swollen with fever, were

visible on her hands. She was shivering and rocking, rather than

reeling, to and fro, like a reed. The lantern threw up its glancing

light on her beautiful face. Her loosened hair floated over her

shoulders. No tears fell on her cheeks. In her eyes there was fire, and

darkness. She was pale, with that paleness which is like the

transparency of a divine life in an earthly face. Her fragile and

exquisite form was, as it were, blended and interfused with the folds of

her robe. She wavered like the flicker of a flame, while, at the same

time, she was dwindling into shadow. Her eyes, opened wide, were

resplendent. She was as one just freed from the sepulchre; a soul

standing in the dawn.

Ursus, whose back only was visible to Gwynplaine, raised his arms in

terror. "O my child! O heavens! she is delirious. Delirium is what I

feared worst of all. She must have no shock, for that might kill her;

yet nothing but a shock can prevent her going mad. Dead or mad! what a

situation. O God! what can I do? My child, lie down again."

922

The Man Who Laughs