expression?--'It is in her heart now--we must have it
out!'--Reflect, my husband; for by all means I would have you recall
that dream."

The mind is in a sad state, when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot
confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them
to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance
belong to a deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He had fancied
himself, with his servant Aminadab, attempting an operation for the
removal of the birth-mark. But the deeper went the knife, the deeper
sank the Hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught
hold of Georgiana's heart; whence, however, her husband was inexorably
resolved to cut or wrench it away.

When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, Aylmer sat in
his wife's presence with a guilty feeling. Truth often finds its way to
the mind close-muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with
uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise an
unconscious self-deception, during our waking moments. Until now, he had
not been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over
his mind, and of the lengths which he might find in his heart to go, for
the sake of giving himself peace.

"Aylmer," resumed Georgiana, solemnly, "I know not what may be the cost
to both of us, to rid me of this fatal birth-mark. Perhaps its removal
may cause cureless deformity. Or, it may be, the stain goes as deep as
life itself. Again, do we know that there is a possibility, on any
terms, of unclasping the firm gripe of this little Hand, which was laid
upon me before I came into the world?"

"Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject," hastily
interrupted Aylmer--"I am convinced of the perfect practicability of its
removal."

"If there be the remotest possibility of it," continued Georgiana, "let
the attempt be made, at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for
life--while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and
disgust--life is a burthen which I would fling down with joy. Either
remove this dreadful Hand, or take my wretched life! You have deep
science! All the world bears witness of it. You have achieved great
wonders! Cannot you remove this little, little mark, which I cover with
the tips of two small fingers! Is this beyond your power, for the sake
of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?"

"Noblest--dearest--tende