First he began to think how Constance would look when he saw her. Would
she be much changed? How beautiful she was the night they parted, with
the blue myosotis gleaming through her bright hair! Would her eyes be as
cold as he remembered them then (he had not seen their _last_ look), or
would they forgive him at once, and tell him so? Not if she knew all.
And then, in hideous contrast to her pure stately beauty, there rose
before him faces and figures which had shared his orgies during the past
months, gay with paint and jewels, and meretricious ornament. There was
a deeper horror in those mocking shapes than in the most loathsome
phantasms of corporeal corruption that feverish dreams ever called up
from the grave-yard. If his lips were unworthy, months ago, to touch
Constance's cheek or hand, what were they now? He ground his teeth in
the bitterness of self-condemnation. It would be easier to bear, if she
met him coldly and proudly, than if she yielded at once, as her letter
seemed to promise. Her letter! What became of the first one? If that had
reached him, how much had been saved! Perhaps Constance's
life--certainly much of his own dishonor. The idea did cross him that
Flora might have been concerned in intercepting it, but it seemed
improbable, and he drove it away.
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