aster'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."

"O, 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 in practice some
of the light and playful secrets which science had taught him among
its profounder lore. Air