Blind, insensate, mad! She cursed herself with unholy curses, and her beautiful face was strained and distorted.

With unconscious fingers she tore at her heavy hair until it fell about her like a curtain.

In the raging thirst of a great grief for tears that would not flow she beat her bosom, she beat her face, she struck with her white forehead the heavy table before her, she grasped her own throat, as though she would tear the life out of herself.

Then again her head fell forward and her body swayed regularly to and fro, and low words broke fiercely from her trembling lips now and then, bitter words of a wild, strong language in which it is easier to curse than to bless.

As the sudden love that had in a few hours taken such complete possession of her was boundless, so its consequences were illimitable.