A form of medium hight, with narrow, stooping shoulders, and a middle-aged face with a strange beauty all its own—the beauty of brilliant eyes, waxen pallor, and hectic-flushed cheeks, that the deadly disease, consumption, bestows upon its victims. Clothed with almost barbaric splendor, with rustling silks and velvets, and sparkling jewels that seemed to flash fire in the dim saloon, she was yet one upon whom the heart ached to gaze, for by her terrible emaciation, and hollow, fever-flushed cheeks, and pain-drawn lips, she was one that cruel death had plainly marked for his own.
In wondering silence Reine's dark eyes lift to the strange woman's face as she comes to her side, diffusing a delicate odor of attar du rose as she moves. She speaks in a low, pleasantly-modulated voice, interrupted by a slight, hacking cough:
"You spoke, did you not? Is there anything you wish?"
"Yes, I want Vane," Reine answers, in a weak, childish voice, forgetful, or momentarily unconscious, of all that has passed since she was sundered from her husband's side.
An expression of pity comes into the emaciated face regarding her.
"I hope you will see Vane after a while," she replies, evasively. "Do you feel better, my dear?"
"Better?" the girl echoes, startled. "Have I been ill?"
"Yes, with fever. But you are convalescing now. Do you remember nothing of your illness?"
"Nothing," Reine answers, dreamily. "And—and your face is strange to me. Have I ever seen you before?"