As these were all women, and some of them delicate and refined even
in their insanity, Traverse felt shocked at this necessary, if it
were necessary, exposure of their sanctuary.
The cells were, in fact, small bedrooms that with their white-washed
walls and white-curtained beds and windows looked excessively neat,
clean and cool, but also, it must be confessed, very bare, dreary
and cheerless.
"Even a looking-glass would be a great benefit to those poor girls,
for I remember that even Clara, in her violent grief, and mother in
her lifelong sorrow, never neglected their looking-glass and
personal appearance," said Traverse to himself, as he passed down
the hall and resolved that this little indulgence should be afforded
the patients.
And except those first involuntary glances he scrupulously avoided
looking in through the gratings upon those helpless women who had no
means of secluding themselves.
But as he turned to go down the stairs his eyes went full into an
opposite cell and fell upon a vision of beauty and sorrow that
immediately riveted his gaze.
It was a small and graceful female figure, clothed in deep black,
seated by the window, with her elbow resting upon the sill and her
chin supported on her hand. Her eyes were cast down until her
eyelashes lay like inky lines upon her snow-white cheek. Her face,
of classic regularity and marble whiteness, bore a ghastly contrast
to the long eyelashes, arched eyebrows and silken ringlets black as
midnight.
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