"I cannot tell why I have told you--but I have. You shall see him too.
What does it matter? We have both loved, we are both unhappy--we shall
never meet again."
"What is it?" Unorna tried to ask, holding the closed case in her
hands. She knew what was within it well enough, and her self-command was
forsaking her. It was almost more than she could bear. It was as though
Beatrice were wreaking vengeance on her, instead of her destroying her
rival as she had meant to do, sooner or later.
Beatrice took the thing from her, opened it, gazed at it a moment, and
put it again into Unorna's hands. "It was like him," she said, watching
her companion as though to see what effect the portrait would produce.
Then she shrank back.
Unorna was looking at her. Her face was livid and unnaturally drawn, and
the extraordinary contrast in the colour of her two eyes was horribly
apparent. The one seemed to freeze, the other to be on fire. The
strongest and worst passions that can play upon the human soul were all
expressed with awful force in the distorted mask, and not a trace of the
magnificent beauty so lately there was visible. Beatrice shrank back in
horror.
"You know him!" she cried, half guessing at the truth.
"I know him--and I love him," said Unorna slowly and fiercely, her eyes
fixed on her enemy, and gradually leaning towards her so as to bring her
face nearer and nearer to Beatrice.
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