have always been most kind and generous to me, and you need not think because I am not intellectual myself I do not care for a man who is intellectual and all those things. I am coming down to see you myself and then if you wish to give me up you can do so--butI hope you will not throw me over so hastily. I am so sorry for your accident and that it has made you so ill, but I do not mind what else it has done.--Believe me, dearest Harry, with best love, hoping you will soon be quite recovered, yours ever lovingly,
Helen.
9
Childish as the letter was it touched me deeply. Edgar must be right after all; I had misjudged a simple but loyal nature that only wanted an emergency to bring its nobler qualities to the surface. I told him about the letter, and added that it made giving her up harder to bear.
'Why should you give her up?' said he[48] eagerly. 'You see she herself will not hear of it.'
'Because she does not understand the case. I am disfigured past recognition; she would shrink with horror from the sight of me. It
would be a shock even to you, a strong unromantic man, to see what I have become.'
'You are too sensitive, old fellow. However shocking the change in you may be, you cannot fail to exaggerate its effect on others.'
'We shall see.'
A few days later, when the horror of my new appearance was indeed a little mitigated by the falling off of the withered outer skin which had covered the right side of my face, I tried the effect of my striking physiognomy on Edgar.
Whether he had expected some such surprise, or whether he was endowed with[49] a splendid insensibility to ugliness, he stood the shock with the most stolid placidity.
'Well?' said I defiantly, looking at him from out my ill-matched eyes in a passion of aggressive rage.
'Well?' said he, as complacently as if I had been a turnip.
'I hope you admire this style of beauty,' I hurled out savagely.
'I don't go quite so far as that, but it's really much better than I expected.'
'You are easily pleased.'
He went on quietly. 'The chief impression your countenance gives one now is not, as you flatter yourself, of consummate ugliness,
but--forgive me--of consummate villainy.'
'What!'
'You are preserved for ever from the danger of being anything but strictly virtuous and straightforward in your dealings,[50] for no one would trust the possessor of that countenance with either a secret or a sovereign.'
This blunt frankness acted better than any softer measures could have done; it made me laugh. Looking again at myself in a glass, for I was now up and dressed, I noticed, what had escaped me before in my paralysed contemplation of the change in my own features, that the drawing up of the right-hand corners of my mouth and eye, together with the removal of every vestige of hair from that
side of the face, had given me the grotesquely repulsive leer of a satyr. To crown my disadvantages, the left side of my face, seen in
profile, still retained its natural appearance to mock my new hideousness.
'But I think I see a way out of all difficulties,' Edgar went on, more seriously. 'You will advance objections, I know, but[51] you must permit your objections to be overruled. Accident can be combated by artifice, and to artifice you must resort until nature does her work and relieves you from the new necessity.'
We fought out the question, and at last I very unwillingly gave way, and submitted to the adoption of a false eyebrow, a false moustache, and a beautiful tuft of curly false hair much superior to my own, to hide the bald patch left by the accident.
Rather elated by this distinct improvement, assumed for the reception of Helen's promised visit, and encouraged by assurances that my own hair would soon grow again and enable me to discard its substitutes, I was ready to believe that the discoloration and disfigurement still visible were comparatively unimportant, and that the repellent expression, which no artifice much abated, might indeed affect strangers,[52] but would not, in the sight of my friends, obscure their long-established impression of my amiability and sweetness.
Sir Wilfrid and Lady Speke had by this time gone up to town, leaving the place, with many kind wishes for my early and complete
recovery, entirely at the disposal of myself and my unwearied nurse Edgar. So a day was fixed for the arrival of Helen and her
10
mother. On that eventful afternoon Edgar settled me in a small sitting-room on the same floor with the room I had been occupying, before starting for the station. The blinds were drawn, and I sat with my back to this carefully-softened light. I wished, now that the ordeal was getting so near, that I had not let myself be dissuaded from my intention of sneaking quietly away without showing my disfigured face to any one. What was the use of my seeing the child again? I did indeed long foolishly for[53] a few last words with her since she had shown unexpected depth of feeling towards me in my misfortune; but it could not end, as Edgar still obstinately hoped, in a renewal of our engagement, which I persisted in regarding as definitely broken. The meeting was only for a farewell.
I was ashamed of the artifices I had used to conceal the traces of my accident, and I was feeling half inclined to tear off my false
ornaments and present myself in my true hideousness, when the arrival of my visitors luckily stopped me. The room where I sat
was at the back of the house, so that I had no warning of the return of the carriage until I heard Edgar's voice. I sprang up with one last look of agony at my reflection in the glass, which seemed to me at that moment a ghastly caricature of my old self, and then sat nervously down again, feeling like a doomed wretch with the executioner outside his cell.
[54]
The door opened, and Edgar bounded up to me, dragging Helen, who seemed shy and nervous, forward on his arm.
'Here he is, Nellie. Getting well fast, you see. Where is mother? I must fetch her up.'
I saw in a moment through the dear clumsy fellow's manoeuvres. He prided himself on his strategy, fancying he had only to leave
us together for us to have a touching reconciliation. But I knew better. I saw her turn pale and cling to her brother's arm, and I said hastily--
'No, no. Lady Castleford is not far behind, you may be sure. I am glad to see you, Lady Helen; it is very kind of you to come. It is easier----'
'Helen has come to persuade you to get well in England among your friends instead of going abroad to be ill among strangers,' said
Edgar, cutting me short. 'He's getting[55] on well, isn't he, Helen? Come, he's well enough to have his hand shaken now.'
He drew her forward, to my inexpressible pain, for I saw the reluctance in her face. Before I could attempt a protest, a reassuring word, she had held out her hand, which I timidly took. Then she lifted her eyes to my face for the first time. For the first and last time I saw the expression of the most vivid, most acute emotion on the fairy face. The muscles were contracted, the pupils of the eyes were dilated with intense horror.
'I am very glad----' she began.
