He should never know it. To love
him, merely to love him, without even acknowledging it, that was the
punishment, the trial she must undergo to pardon her fault. It would be
to her in reality a delicious suffering. She thought of the martyrs of
whom she had read in the "Golden Legend," and it seemed to her that she
was their sister in torturing herself in this way, and that her guardian
angel, Agnes, would look at her henceforward with sadder, sweeter eyes
than ever.
The following day Angelique finished the mitre. She had embroidered with
split silk, light as gossamer, the little hands and feet, which were the
only points of white, naked flesh that came out from the royal mantle of
golden hair. She perfected the face with all the delicacy of the purest
lily, wherein the gold seemed like the blood in the veins under the
delicate, silken skin. And this face, radiant as the sun, was turned
heavenward, as the youthful saint was borne upward by the angels toward
the distant horizon of the blue plain.
When Felicien entered that day, he exclaimed with admiration:
"Oh! how exactly she looks like you."
It was an involuntary expression; an acknowledgment of the resemblance
he had purposely put in the design.
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