Half the canvases had been turned, and then I came upon what I
sought.
I stood petrified. But I heard Wilderspin's voice at my side say, 'Do
not let an imaginary scene distress you, Mr. Aylwin. The picture
merely represents the scene in Coleridge's poem where the Lady
Christabel, having secretly and in pity brought to her room to share
her bed the mysterious lady she had met in the forest at midnight,
watches the beautiful witch undress, and is spell-bound and struck
dumb by some "sight to dream of, not to tell," which she sees at the
lady's bosom.'
* * * * *
Christabel! It was Winifred sitting there upright in bed, confronted
by a female figure--a tall lady, who with bowed head was undressing
herself beneath a lamp suspended from the ceiling. Christabel! It was
Winifred gazing at this figure--gazing as though fascinated; her dark
hair falling and tumbling down her neck, till it was at last partly
lost between her shining bosom and her nightdress. Yes, and in her
blue eyes there was the same concentration of light, there was the
same uprolling of the lips, there was the same dreadful gleaming of
the teeth, the same swollen veins about the throat that I had seen in
Wales.
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