As he had placed the Wafer on Mina's forehead, it had seared it ...

had burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal.
My poor darling's brain had told her the significance of the fact as quickly as her nerves received the pain of it, and the two so overwhelmed her that her overwrought nature had its voice in that dreadful scream.
But the words to her thought came quickly.

The echo of the scream had not ceased to ring on the air when there came the reaction, and she sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement.

Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out.
"Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgement Day." They all paused.

I had thrown myself beside her in an agony of helpless grief, and putting my arms around held her tight.