"I didn't know as you was vain, mum," she observed, as she put it into my hand.
"You can go back to your oven now, Amelia," I said a little frigidly.
I waited till she had gone, and then raised the glass. Two great, dark, burning eyes looked into mine. My cheeks were wasted, and my hair lay in a damp cloud on my forehead. All the gold which Dimbie loved so much seemed to have gone out of it. In the relentless light of day, fascinated, I gazed at my strangely-altered countenance.
"And once Dimbie thought that face beautiful!" The words burst from me in a sob, but no tears came. My aching eyes turned to the roses and lupins which were drooping in the hot afternoon sunshine, to the hedge of wondrous-tinted sweet-peas, to the cool, green limes and beech tree leaning over the fence.
"How lovely to be inanimate!" I cried passionately. "To be without a soul, without a memory, without a future. To be a soft, fragrant rose wrapped round by the sun and the wind and summer rain, sending forth a sweetness to gladden the heart of man, and then falling petal by petal to the cool, kind embrace of mother earth."
Why should humans suffer so? Why should all this pain be? Animals and birds and fish and insects prey upon one another. They drink to the dregs the cup of physical suffering, but they are spared the anguish of mental pain.
Will Dimbie's love stand?
Ah, that is what is torturing me day and night!
Will Dimbie remain faithful?
He is but young. Life is before him. He still lives in the present and future, only the old live in the past. To be tied forever to a helpless wife, to a creature wedded to a couch, to a stricken, maimed woman. Oh, how I hate myself! I despise my own weakness and impotence. Once I was a strong girl, who could run and dance and scale high mountains. Dimbie said my eyes were as bright as stars in the frosty heavens, my hair as gold as the setting sun, my cheeks—ah, he flattered me! And now, God help—but no, there is no one to help me. God has forgotten me!