In a few days after this she was sitting in the drawing-room when Woodward unexpectedly entered it, and saluted her with great apparent good feeling and politeness. The surprise caused her to become as pale as death; she felt her very limbs relax with weakness, and her breath for a few moments taken away from her; she looked upon him with an expression of alarm and fear which she could not conceal, and it was with some difficulty that she was at length enabled to speak.
“You will excuse me, sir,” she said, “for not rising; I am very nervous, and have not been at all well for the last week or upwards.”
“Indeed, Miss Goodwin, I am very sorry to hear this; I trust it is only a mere passing indisposition; I think the complaint is general, for my sister has also been ailing much the same way for the last few days. Don't be alarmed, Miss Goodwin, it is nothing, and won't signify. You should mingle more in society; you keep too much alone.”
“But I do not relish society; I never mingle in it that I don't feel exhausted and depressed.”
“That certainly makes a serious difference; in such a case, then, I imagine society would do you more harm than good. I should not have intruded on you had not your mother requested me to come up and try to raise your spirits—a pleasure which I would gladly enjoy if I could.”
“I am much obliged to you, Mr. Woodward,” she replied; “I hope a short time will remove this unusual depression, and I must only have a little patience.”
“Just so, Miss Goodwin; a little time, as you say, will restore you to yourself.”
Now all this was very courteous and kind of Mr. Woodward, and might have raised her spirits were it not for the eye. From the moment he entered the apartment that dreaded instrument of his power was fixed upon her with a look so concentrated, piercing, and intense, that it gave a character of abstraction to all he said. In other words, she felt as if his language proceeded out of his lips unconsciously, and that some mysterious purport of his heart emanated from his eye. It appeared to her that he was thinking of something secret connected with herself, to which his words bore no reference whatsoever. She neither knew what to do nor what to say under this terrible and permeating gaze; it was in vain she turned away her eyes; she knew—she felt—that his was upon her—that it was drinking up her strength—that, in fact, the evil influence was; mingling with and debilitating her frame, and operating upon all her faculties. There was still, however, a worse symptom, and one which gave that gaze a significance that appalled her—this was the smile of triumph which she had seen playing coldly but triumphantly about his lips in her dreams. That smile was the feather to the arrow that pierced her, and that was piercing her at that moment—it was the cold but glittering glance of the rattlesnake, when breaking down by the poison of his eyes the power of resistance in his devoted victim.
“Mr. Woodward,” said she, after a long pause, “I am unable to bear an interview—have the goodness to withdraw, and when you go down-stairs send my mother up. Excuse me, sir; but you must perceive how very ill I have got within a few minutes.”
“I regret it exceedingly, Miss Goodwin. I had something to mention to you respecting that unfortunate brother of mine; but you are not now in a condition to hear anything unpleasant and distressing; and, indeed, it is better, I think, now that I observe your state of health, that you should not even wish to hear it.”