skill
with which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, he
executed all the details of his master's experiments. With his vast
strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable
earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man's physical
nature; while Aylmer's slender figure, and pale, intellectual face,
were no less apt a type of the spiritual element.

"Throw open the door of the boudoir, Aminadab," said Aylmer, "and burn
a pastil."

"Yes, master," answered Aminadab, looking intently at the lifeless form
of Georgiana; and then he muttered to himself, "If she were my wife,
I'd never part with that birthmark."

When Georgiana recovered consciousness she found herself breathing an
atmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle potency of which had
recalled her from her deathlike faintness. The scene around her looked
like enchantment. Aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre
rooms, where he had spent his brightest years in recondite pursuits,
into a series of beautiful apartments not unfit to be the secluded
abode of a lovely woman. The walls were hung with gorgeous curtains,
which imparted the combination of grandeur and grace that no other
species of adornment can achieve; and as they fell from the ceiling to
the floor, their rich and ponderous folds, concealing all angles and
straight lines, appeared to shut in the scene from infinite space. For
aught Georgiana knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds. And
Aylmer, excluding the sunshine, which would have interfered with his
chemical processes, had supplied its place with perfumed lamps,
emitting flames of various hue, but all uniting in a soft, impurpled
radiance. He now knelt by his wife's side, watching her earnestly, but
without alarm; for he was confident in his science, and felt that he
could draw a magic circle round her within which no evil might intrude.

"Where am I? Ah, I remember," said Georgiana, faintly; and she placed
her hand over her cheek to hide the terrible mark from her husband's
eyes.

"Fear not, dearest!" exclaimed he. "Do not shrink from me! Believe me,
Georgiana, I even rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will be
such a rapture to remove it."

"Oh, spare me!" sadly replied his wife. "Pray do not look at it again.
I never can forget that convulsive shudder."

In order to soothe Georgiana, and, as it were, to release her mind from
the burden of actual things, Aylmer now put