"Why do you come hither? Have you no trust in your husband?"
cried he impetuously. "Would you throw the blight of that fatal
birthmark over my labors? It is not well done. Go, prying woman, go!"
Nay, Aylmer," said Georgiana, with the firmness of which she
possessed no stinted endowment, "it is not you that have a right to
complain. You mistrust your wife! You have concealed the anxiety
with which you watch the development of this experiment. Think not
so unworthily of me, my husband! Tell me all the risk we run; and fear
not that I shall shrink, for my share in it is far less than your
own!"
"No, no, Georgiana!" said Aylmer impatiently, "it must not be."
"I submit," replied she calmly. "And, Aylmer, I shall quaff
whatever draught you bring me; but it will be on the same principle
that would induce me to take a dose of poison, if offered by your
hand."
"My noble wife," said Aylmer, deeply moved, "I knew not the height
and depth of your nature, until now. Nothing shall be concealed.
Know, then, that this Crimson Hand, superficial as it seems, has
clutched its grasp into your being, with a strength of which I had no
previous conception. I have already administered agents powerful
enough to do aught except to change your entire physical system. Only
one thing remains to be tried.
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