- end_line
- 15920
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 15863
- text
- hate, in a world which elsewise only merits stagnant scorn!--Now, then,
where is this swindler's, this coiner's book? Here, on this vile
counter, over which the coiner thought to pass it to the world, here
will I nail it fast, for a detected cheat! And thus nailed fast now, do
I spit upon it, and so get the start of the wise world's worst abuse of
it! Now I go out to meet my fate, walking toward me in the street."
As with hat on, and Glen and Frederic's letter invisibly crumpled in his
hand, he--as it were somnambulously--passed into the room of Isabel, she
gave loose to a thin, long shriek, at his wondrous white and haggard
plight; and then, without the power to stir toward him, sat petrified
in her chair, as one embalmed and glazed with icy varnish.
He heeded her not, but passed straight on through both intervening
rooms, and without a knock unpremeditatedly entered Lucy's chamber. He
would have passed out of that, also, into the corridor, without one
word; but something stayed him.
The marble girl sat before her easel; a small box of pointed charcoal,
and some pencils by her side; her painter's wand held out against the
frame; the charcoal-pencil suspended in two fingers, while with the same
hand, holding a crust of bread, she was lightly brushing the
portrait-paper, to efface some ill-considered stroke. The floor was
scattered with the bread-crumbs and charcoal-dust; he looked behind the
easel, and saw his own portrait, in the skeleton.
At the first glimpse of him, Lucy started not, nor stirred; but as if
her own wand had there enchanted her, sat tranced.
"Dead embers of departed fires lie by thee, thou pale girl; with dead
embers thou seekest to relume the flame of all extinguished love! Waste
not so that bread; eat it--in bitterness!"
He turned, and entered the corridor, and then, with outstretched arms,
paused between the two outer doors of Isabel and Lucy.
"For ye two, my most undiluted prayer is now, that from your here unseen
and frozen chairs ye may never stir alive;--the fool of Truth, the fool
of Virtue, the fool of Fate, now quits ye forever!"
As he now sped down the long winding passage, some one eagerly hailed
him from a stair.
"What, what, my boy? where now in such a squally hurry? Hallo, I say!"
But without heeding him at all, Pierre drove on. Millthorpe looked
anxiously and alarmedly after him a moment, then made a movement in
pursuit, but paused again.
"There was ever a black vein in this Glendinning; and now that vein is
swelled, as if it were just one peg above a tourniquet drawn over-tight.
I scarce durst dog him now; yet my heart misgives me that I
should.--Shall I go to his rooms and ask what black thing this is that
hath befallen him?--No; not yet;--might be thought officious--they say
I'm given to that. I'll wait; something may turn up soon. I'll into the
front street, and saunter some; and then--we'll see."
- title
- Chunk 2