image our terror had foredrawn. Somewhat such feeling had Mordaunt
now, as his steps sounded hollow and echoless on the stairs, and the
stars filled the air around him with their shadowy and solemn
presence. Breaking by a violent effort from a spell of which he felt
that a frame somewhat overtasked of late was the real enchanter, he
turned once more into the room which he had left to visit Isabel. He
had pledged his personal attendance at an important motion in the
House of Commons for that night, and some political papers were left
upon his table which he had promised to give to one of the members of
his party. He entered the room, purposing to stay only a minute; an
hour passed before he left it: and his servant afterwards observed
that, on giving him some orders as he passed through the hall to the
carriage, his cheek was as white as marble, and that his step, usually
so haughty and firm, reeled and trembled like a fainting man's. Dark
and inexplicable Fate! weaver of wild contrasts, demon of this hoary
and old world, that movest through it, as a spirit moveth over the
waters, filling the depths of things with a solemn mystery and an
everlasting change! Thou sweepest over our graves, and Joy is born
from the ashes: thou sweepest over Joy, and lo, it is a grave! Engine
and tool of the Almighty, whose years cannot fade, thou changest the
earth as a garment, and as a vesture it is changed; thou makest it one
vast sepulchre and womb united, swallowing and creating life! and
reproducing, over and over, from age to age, from the birth of
creation to the creation's doom, the same dust and atoms which were
our fathers, and which are the sole heirlooms that through countless
generations they bequeath and perpetuate to their sons.