Glanville paused for a moment. I raised the handkerchief from the miniatureI pushed the latter towards him"Do you remember this?" said I, in a low tone.
With a wild cry, which thrilled through my heart, Glanville sprung forward and seized it. He gazed eagerly and intensely upon it, and his cheek flushedhis eyes sparkledhis breast heaved. The next moment he fell back in his chair, in one of the half swoons, to which, upon any sudden and violent emotion, the debilitating effects of his disease subjected him.
Before I could come to his assistance he had recovered. He looked wildly and fiercely upon me. "Speak," he cried, "speakwhere got you this where?answer, for mercy's sake!"
"Recollect yourself," said I, sternly. "I found that token of your presence upon the spot where Tyrrell was murdered."
"True, true," said Glanville, slowly, and in an absent and abstracted tone. He ceased abruptly, and covered his face with his hands; from this attitude he started with some sudden impulse.
"And tell me," he said, in a low, inward, exulting tone, "was itwas it red with the blood of the murdered man?"
"Wretch!" I exclaimed, "do you glory in your guilt?"
"Hold!" said Glanville, rising, with an altered and haughty air; "it is not to your accusations that I am now to listen: if you are yet desirous of weighing their justice before you decide upon them, you will have the opportunity: I shall be at home at ten this night; come to me, and you shall know all. At present, the sight of this picture has unnerved me. Shall I see you?"
I made no other rejoinder than the brief expression of my assent, and Glanville instantly left the room.
During the whole of that day, my mind was wrought up into a state of feverish and preternatural excitation. I could not remain in the same spot for an instant; my pulse beat with the irregularity of delirium. For the last hour I placed my watch before me, and kept my eyes constantly fixed upon it. Should any one think this exaggerated, let him remember, that it was not only Glanville's confession that I was to hear; my own fate, my future connection with Ellen, rested upon the story of that night. For myself, when I called to mind Glanville's acknowledgment of the picture, and his slow and involuntary remembrance of the spot where it was found, I scarcely allowed my temper, sanguine as it was, to hope.
Some minutes before the hour of ten I repaired to Glanville's house. He was alonethe picture was before him.
I drew my chair towards him in silence, and accidentally lifting up my eyes, encountered the opposite mirror. I started at my own face; the intensity and fearfulness of my interest had rendered it even more hueless than that of my companion.
There was a pause for some moments, at the end of which Glanville thus began.
CHAPTER LXXIV
I do but hide
Under these words, like embers, every spark
Of that which has consumed me. Quick and dark
The grave is yawning;as its roof shall cover
My limbs with dust and worms, under and over,
So let oblivion hide this grief.
Julian and Maddalo.
With thee, the very future fled,
I stand amid the past alone;
A tomb which still shall guard the dead
Tho' every earthlier trace be flown,
A tomb o'er which the weeds that love
Decaytheir wild luxuriance wreathe!
The cold and callous stone above
And only thou and death beneath.
"You remember my character at schoolthe difficulty with which you drew me from the visionary and abstracted loneliness which, even at that time, was more consonant to my taste, than all the sports and society resorted to by other boysand the deep, and, to you, inexplicable delight with which I returned to my reveries and solitude again. That character has continued through life the same; circumstances have strengthened, not altered it. So has it been with you; the temper, the habits, the tastes, so strongly contrasted with mine in boyhood, have lost nothing of that contrast. Your ardour for the various ambition of life is still the antipodes to my indifference; your daring, restless, thoughtful, resolution in the pursuit, still shames my indolence and abstraction. You are still the votary of the world, but will become its conquerorI its fugitiveand shall die its victim.
"After we parted at school, I went for a short time to a tutor's in shire. Of this place I soon grew weary; and my father's death leaving me in a great measure at my own disposal, I lost no time in leaving it. I was seized with that mania for travel common enough to all persons of my youth and disposition. My mother allowed me an almost unlimited command over the fortune hereafter to be my own; and, yielding to my wishes, rather than her fears, she suffered me, at the age of eighteen, to set out for the Continent alone. Perhaps the quiet and reserve of my character made her think me less exposed to the dangers of youth, than if I had been of a more active and versatile temper. This is no uncommon mistake; a serious and contemplative disposition is, however, often the worst formed to acquire readily the knowledge of the world, and always the most calculated to suffer deeply from the experience.
"I took up my residence for some time at Spa. It is, you know, perhaps, a place dull enough to make gambling the only amusement; every one played and I did not escape the contagion; nor did I wish it: for, like the minister Godolphin, I loved gaming for its own sake, because it was a substitute for conversation. This habit brought me acquainted with Mr. Tyrrell, who was then staying at Spa; he had not, at that time, quite dissipated his fortune, but was daily progressing to so desirable a consummation. A gambler's acquaintance is readily made, and easily kept, provided you gamble too.
"We became as intimate as the reserve of my habits ever suffered me to become with any one, but you. He was many years older than mehad seen a great deal of the worldhad mixed much in its best societies, and, at that time, whatever was the grossierete of his mind, had little of the coarseness of manner which very soon afterwards distinguished him; evil communication works rapidly in its results. Our acquaintance was, therefore, natural enough, especially when it is considered that my purse was entirely at his disposalfor borrowing is twice blessed, in him that takes and him that givesthe receiver becomes complaisant and conceding, and the lender thinks favourably of one he has obliged.
"We parted at Spa, under a mutual promise to write. I forget if this promise was keptprobably not; we were not, however, the worse friends for being bad correspondents. I continued my travels for about another year; I then returned to England, the same melancholy and dreaming enthusiast as before. It is true that we are the creatures of circumstances; but circumstances are also, in a great measure, the creatures of us. I mean, they receive their colour from the previous bent of our own minds; what raises one would depress another, and what vitiates my neighbour might correct me. Thus the experience of the world makes some persons more worldlyothers more abstracted, and the indulgence of the senses becomes a violence to one mind, and a second nature to another. As for me, I had tasted all the pleasures youth and opulence can purchase, and was more averse to them than ever. I had mixed with many varieties of menI was still more rivetted to the monotony of self.