Magdalen came over and stood beside Marian Lesley . `` She wants me , '' she said in a low , thrilling voice ; free from all harsh accent or intonation . `` I am the only one she seems to know always . Yes , darling , Mad ` len is here -- right beside you . She will not leave you . '' She knelt by the little cot and passed her arm under the child 's neck , drawing the curly head close to her throat with a tender , soothing motion . Esterbrook Elliott watched the two women intently -- the one standing by the cot , arrayed in simple yet costly apparel , with her beautiful , high-bred face , and the other , kneeling on the bare , sanded floor in her print dress , with her splendid head bent low over the child and the long fringe of burnished lashes sweeping the cold pallor of the oval cheek . From the moment that Magdalen Crawford 's haunting eyes had looked straight into his for one fleeting second , an unnamable thrill of pain and pleasure stirred his heart , a thrill so strong and sudden and passionate that his face paled with emotion ; the room seemed to swim before his eyes in a mist out of which gleamed that wonderful face with its mesmeric , darkly radiant eyes , burning their way into deeps and abysses of his soul hitherto unknown to him . When the mist cleared away and his head grew steadier , he wondered at himself . Yet he trembled in every limb and the only clear idea that struggled out of his confused thoughts was an overmastering desire to take that cold face between his hands and kiss it until its passionless marble glowed into warm and throbbing life . `` Who is that girl ? '' he said abruptly , when they had left the cottage . `` She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen -- present company always excepted , '' he concluded , with a depreciatory laugh . The delicate bloom on Marian 's face deepened slightly . `` You had much better to have omitted that last sentence , '' she said quietly , `` it was so palpably an afterthought . Yes , she is wonderfully lovely -- a strange beauty , I fancied . There seemed something odd and uncanny about it to me . She must be Mrs. Barrett 's niece . I remember that when I was down here about a month ago Mrs. Barrett told me she expected a niece of hers to live with her -- for a time at least . Her parents were both dead , the father having died recently .
Mrs. Barrett seemed troubled XXXXX her .
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