r lips, and her face, moved by
the expectation of a pleasure, shone like that of an Italian Madonna.
She suddenly gained strength to drive her terrors back into the depths
of her heart. Then she turned her face to the panel of the wall which
she knew was about to open, and which in fact was now pushed in with
such brusque violence that the poor woman herself seemed jarred by the
shock.

Balthazar Claes suddenly appeared, made a few steps forward, did not
look at the woman, or if he looked at her did not see her, and stood
erect in the middle of the parlor, leaning his half-bowed head on his
right hand. A sharp pang to which the woman could not accustom herself,
although it was daily renewed, wrung her heart, dispelled her smile,
contracted the sallow forehead between the eyebrows, indenting that line
which the frequent expression of excessive feeling scores so deeply;
her eyes filled with tears, but she wiped them quickly as she looked at
Balthazar.

It was impossible not to be deeply impressed by this head of the family
of Claes. When young, he must have resembled the noble family martyr who
had threatened to be another Artevelde to Charles V.; but as he stood
there at this moment, he seemed over sixty years of age, though he
was only fifty; and this premature old age had destroyed the honorable
likeness. His tall figure was slightly bent,--either because his labors,
whatever they were, obliged him to stoop, or that the spinal column
was curved by the weight of his head. He had a broad chest and square
shoulders, but the lower parts of his body were lank and wasted, though
nervous; and this discrepancy in a physical organization evidently once
perfect puzzled the mind which endeavored to explain this anomalous
figure by some possible singularities of the man's life.

His thick blond hair, ill cared-for, fell over his shoulders in the
Dutch fashion, and its very disorder was in keeping with the general
eccentricity of his person. His broad brow showed certain protuberances
which Gall identifies with poetic genius. His clear and full blue eyes
had the brusque vivacity which may be noticed in searchers for occult
causes. The nose, probably perfect in early life, was now elongated, and
the nostrils seemed to have gradually opened wider from an involuntary
tension of the olfactory muscles. The cheek-bones were very prominent,
which made the cheeks themselves, already withered, seem more sunken;
his mouth, full of sweetne