and always should speak it imperfectly and hesitatingly. "'All these weary days,' I have not for one hour forgotten you. Faithful women err in this, that they think themselves the sole faithful of God's creatures. On a very fervent and living truth to myself, I, too, till lately scarce dared count, from any quarter; but —— look at me."
I lifted my happy eyes: they were happy now, or they would have been no interpreters of my heart.
"Well," said he, after some seconds' scrutiny, "there is no denying that signature: Constancy wrote it; her pen is of iron. Was the record painful?"
"Severely painful," I said, with truth. "Withdraw her hand, monsieur; I can bear its inscribing force no more."
"Elle est toute pâle," said he, speaking to himself; "cette figure là me fait mal."
"Ah! I am not pleasant to look at——?"
I could not help saying this; the words came unbidden: I never remember the time when I had not a haunting dread of what might be the degree of my outward deficiency; this dread pressed me at the moment with special force.
