The drooping lids, not drawn, but darkened with faint, uneven shadows by the flow of many tears, were slowly lifted now and again, disclosing a vision of black eyes not meant for endless weeping, nor made so deep and warm only to strain their sight towards heaven above, forgetting earth below.

Unorna knew that those same eyes could gleam, and flash, and blaze, with love and hate and anger, that under the rich, pale skin, the blood could rise and ebb with the changing tide of the heart, that the warm lips could part with passion and, moving, form words of love.

She saw pride in the wide sensitive nostrils, strength in the even brow, and queenly dignity in the perfect poise of the head upon the slender throat.

And the clasped hands were womanly, too, neither full and white and heavy like those of a marble statue, as Unorna's were, nor thin and over-sensitive like those of holy women in old pictures, but real and living, delicate in outline, but not without nervous strength, hands that might linger in another's, not wholly passive, but all responsive to the thrill of a loving touch.
It was very hard to bear.

A better woman than Unorna might have felt something evil and cruel and hating in her heart, at the sight of so much beauty in one who held her place, in the queen of the kingdom where she longed to reign.