She was almost sorry, now, that the whirlwind of frantic
elements had subsided; that had been a sort of terrible complement
to the whirlwind of anguish within herself.
She lay there tense, strangling a desperate impulse to sob. La Beale
Isoud had died of love--and now Aunt Isabel was already sickening.
She half-realized that people don't die of love nowadays--that
happened only in the Middle Ages; yet, there in the black stormy
night, strange, horrible fancies overruled the sane convictions of
daytime. It was fearfully significant, Aunt Isabel's sickening so
quickly, so mysteriously. And immediately after Mr. Saunders's
departure. That was exactly what La Beale Isoud always did whenever
Sir Tristram was obliged to leave her; Sir Tristram was continually
having to flee away, a kind of knight of the road, too--to this
battle or that tourney or what-not--"here to-day, gone to-morrow,
never able to stay where his heart would wish."
"Oh! oh!"
At last exhaustion had its way with the taut, quivering little body;
the hot eyelids closed; the burning cheek relaxed on the pillow.
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