A heavy mass of straight jet-black hair had escaped from its fastening, and hung over her shoulders.

Her grandly-cut features, pale with the natural paleness of a brunette, had premature lines about them, telling that the years had been lengthened by sorrow, and the delicately-curved nostril, which seemed made to quiver with the proud consciousness of power and beauty, must have quivered to the heart-piercing griefs which had given that worn look to the corners of the mouth.

Her wide open black eyes had a strangely fixed, sightless gaze, as she paused at the turning, and stood silent before her husband.
'I'll teach you to keep me waiting in the dark, you pale staring fool!' he said, advancing with his slow drunken step.

'What, you've been drinking again, have you?
I'll beat you into your senses.' He laid his hand with a firm grip on her shoulder, turned her round, and pushed her slowly before him along the passage and through the dining-room door, which stood open on their left hand.
There was a portrait of Janet's mother, a grey-haired, dark-eyed old woman, in a neatly fluted cap, hanging over the mantelpiece.

Surely the aged eyes take on a look of anguish as they see Janet--not trembling, no! it would be better if she trembled--standing stupidly unmoved in her great beauty while the heavy arm is lifted to strike her.