Never before had the realisation of that strange likeness seemed so
intolerable as at that moment. Even now her aunt was looking at her
with the very air and gesture which had once charmed her in her own
reflection, and that she knew still charmed and fascinated her lover.
It was an air and gesture of which she could never break herself. It
was natural to her, a true expression of something ineradicable in her
being. Indeed, one of the worst penalties imposed upon her during the
past month had been the omission of those pleasant ceremonies before
the mirror. She had somehow missed herself, lost the sweetest and most
adorable of companions!

Miss Deane got up, and holding herself very erect, moved with a little
mincing step towards the tall mirror over the console table. Rachel
held her breath. She saw that her aunt, suddenly aroused by this
thought of the coming lover, was returning mechanically to her old
habit of self-admiration. Was it possible, Rachel wondered, that the
sight of the image she would see in the looking-glass, contrasted now
with the memories of the living reflection she had so intimately
studied for the past four weeks, might shock her into a realisation of
the starkly hideous truth?

But it seemed that the aged woman must be blind. She gave no start of
surprise as she paused before the glass; she showed no sign of anxiety
concerning the vision she saw there. Her left hand, in which she held
her lorgnette, had fallen to her side, and with the finger-tips of her
right she daintily caressed the hollows of her sunken cheeks. She
stayed there until Rachel, unable to endure the sight any longer, and
with some vague purpose of defiance in her mind, jumped to her feet,
crossed the room and stood shoulder by shoulder with her aunt staring