In those few hours, since she had heard from Devenish
that another woman was claiming the attentions of Traill's mind,
Sally had aged--withered almost--in the fierce stress of her passion
of jealousy. It had passed over her like the sirocco of the desert,
leaving her parched, dried, shrivelled, as a child grown old before
its years. No colour was there in her cheeks, no vestige of the sign
that beneath a mere fraction's measurement of that white skin, the
blood was flowing through her veins. Yet the skin was not really white.
It was an ugly grey, smirched with a colour that bore but the faintest
resemblance to animation. Beneath the eyes deep shadows lay, smeared
into the sockets. She lifted the candle to their level, but they did
not disappear. Pain had cast them, and no shifting of material light
would wipe them out. But it was the eyes themselves that startled
her. When she looked into them--deep into the pupils--she realized
how close she had drifted to the moment beyond which control is of
no account--the moment of absolute madness. Even then, they
glittered unnaturally. A gleam from the candle again? She moved it
once more--this way and that--but still the light flickered there,
frightening her into a sudden effort of restraint.
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