ground until she was no more than a shapeless and ignominious mass on the bare boards in front of the fire. Every line of her body was merged and outspread into something amorphous, without form. Her helplessness was too complete to arouse pity. Such a flaccidity was greater than that of an infant, whose frame is too puny even to allow it to crawl.
Northcote had no disgust. He had too sharp a sense of horror that the power should be denied to him to succor such an invertebrate thing. Presently, by an effort which seemed to shatter her flesh, the creature was able to move. She rose from her knees, issuing from the state of coma with all the heavy and desperate pangs of one who attempts to throw off the fumes of a deadly venom. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands, and folded her arms in front of her.
"If you could have touched me once with the hem of your garment you would have healed me. As it is, I walk back with my wounds into the world."
A singular change had occurred in the voice of the suppliant. It was far other than that which had clothed the language of entreaty which had previously fallen from her lips. In the ear of Northcote the change wrought relief. Yet even as he imbibed this clear, this definite, this pungent tone with the eagerness of one who presses cold water to his throat at a time when the pangs of his thirst have become insupportable, a rapid and bewildering transformation took place in her who confronted him. She who a minute ago had presented the appearance of a nebula, suddenly broke out all over into light like a star. Out of the sprawling shape-
