Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v2.djvu/84

64 not his name written on the letter, "To Gwynplaine"? The paper was scented. All was clear. Gwynplaine knew the little man. The dwarf was a page. The gleaming scarlet was a livery. The page had given him a rendezvous for the same hour on the morrow, at the corner of London Bridge. Was London Bridge an illusion? No, no; everything was plain. There was no delirium. It was all reality. Gwynplaine was perfectly clear in his mind. It was not a phantasmagoria suddenly dissolving above his head, and fading into nothingness; it was something that had really happened to him.

No, Gwynplaine was not mad, nor was he dreaming. He read the letter again. 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 gypsy? 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 headlong into it? What! that woman? That siren, that goddess, that superb lady in the box, that light in the darkness! It was she. Yes; it was she!

His blood seemed to take fire throughout his veins. It was the beautiful unknown,—she who had so troubled his thoughts previously; and his first tumultuous feelings about this woman returned. 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 this image from his remembrance, but he found that it was still there; she had put her mark in his brain, and without his