The life she offered might have psalmic iteration; the dead monotony of it in prospect did, nevertheless, exorcise a devil.

Carinthia promised, it might seem to chase and keep the black beast out of him permanently, as she could, he now conceived: for since the day of the marriage with her, the devil inhabiting him had at least been easier, 'up in a corner.' He held an individual memory of his bride, rose-veiled, secret to them both, that made them one, by subduing him.

For it was a charm; an actual feminine, an unanticipated personal, charm; past reach of tongue to name, wordless in thought.

There, among the folds of the incense vapours of our heart's holy of holies, it hung; and it was rare, it was distinctive of her, and alluring, if one consented to melt to it, and accepted for compensation the exorcising of a devil.
Oh, but no mere devil by title!--a very devil.

It was alert and frisky, flushing, filling the thin cold idea of Henrietta at a thought; and in the thought it made Carinthia's intimate charm appear as no better than a thing to enrich a beggar, while he knew that kings could never command the charm.