The first thing he saw when he was ushered into Jaquelina's presence was her portrait hanging against the wall. It had been painted by the first artist in Italy. A few pale beams of winter sunshine stole in through the closed curtains and shone on the beautiful pictured face, touching it with a life-like glow. Then Walter looked away from it and saw a little figure in a quilted morning-wrapper of dark, gray satin, huddled into an easy-chair before the fire.
Walter went up to his betrothed. He saw that some uncontrollable impulse had caused her to bury her poor scarred face in her small, gloved hands. The short, soft, dark hair was hidden beneath a little cap of fine muslin and lace.
"Lina, my darling," he cried out in a voice of yearning pain, and she looked up reluctantly at her lover.
Then Walter saw that even Violet's words had not prepared him for the sorrowful reality.
To have saved his life he could not have repressed the groan of anguish that sight wrung from his lips. He had so loved that bright, fascinating beauty, he had been so proud of it when she had promised to be his own. Now at this moment it seemed to him that the girl he had loved was dead and buried, and this an utter stranger who looked up at him with that poor scarred face, and those dim and sad, dark eyes.
"Sit down, Mr. Earle," she said, gently. "It is even worse than you imagined, is it not?"
"Yes," he answered, like one dazed, then started, ashamed of his candor.
"Oh! forgive me, Lina," he cried, "I am talking like a brute."
He sat down then and tried not to look at the poor face that reminded him of a blighted flower. But some irresistible fascination drew his own gaze to meet the wistful eyes that had lost all their brightness now and were dim and misty with pain and weakness.
"Do I look at all like my old self?" she asked him, and he answered almost bluntly: