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Rh and shut her eyes convulsively, with arms abhorrently outstretched.

'Monster! incomprehensible fiend!' cried the anew terror-smitten maid—'depart! See! she dies away at the sight of thee—begone! Wouldst thou murder her afresh? Begone!'

Starched and frozen by his own emotion, Pierre silently turned and quitted the chamber; and heavily descending the stairs, tramped heavily—as a man slowly bearing a great burden—through a long, narrow passage leading to a wing in the rear of the cottage, and knocking at Mrs. Llanyllyn's door, summoned her to Lucy, who, he briefly said, had fainted. Then, without waiting for any response, left the house, and went directly to the mansion.

III

'Is my mother up yet?' said he to Dates, whom he met in the hall.

'Not yet, sir;—heavens, sir! are you sick?'

'To death! Let me pass.'

Ascending toward his mother's chamber, he heard a coming step, and met her on the great middle landing of the stairs, where in an ample niche, a marble group of the temple-polluting Laocoon and his two innocent children, caught in inextricable snarls of snakes, writhed in eternal torments.

'Mother, go back with me to thy chamber.'

She eyed his sudden presence with a dark but repressed foreboding; drew herself up haughtily and repellingly, and with a quivering lip, said, 'Pierre, thou thyself hast denied me thy confidence, and thou shalt not force me back to it so easily. Speak! what is that now between thee and me?'

'I am married, mother.'