Some terrible oppression seemed to have crushed her.

It was as if she had actually shrunk in height as well as in substance.

She walked more slowly than usual; she spoke more rarely than usual, and in a lower tone.

To those who had seen her before the fatal visit of the stranger from Mannheim, it was the wreck of the woman that now appeared instead of the woman herself.

And yet there was the old charm still surviving through it all; the grandeur of the head and eyes, the delicate symmetry of the features, the unsought grace of every movement--in a word, the unconquerable beauty which suffering cannot destroy, and which time itself is powerless to wear out.