Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/221

Rh streets of cities, standing right before his path. The gaze of each fell full upon the other; and it was thus, for the first time since they laid their heads on the same pillow, that the Husband met the Wife. The skies were intensely clear,, and the lamp-light was bright and calm upon the faces of both. There was no doubt in the mind of either. Suddenly, and with a startled and ghastly consciousness, they recognised each other. The wife staggered, and clung to a post for support: Brandon's look was calm and unmoved. The hour that his bitter and malignant spirit had yearned for was come: his nerves expanded in a voluptuous calmness, as if to give him a deliberate enjoyment of his hope fulfilled. Whatever the words that, in that unwitnessed and almost awful interview, passed between them, we may be sure that Brandon spared not one atom of his power. The lost and abandoned wife returned home, and all her nature, embruted as it had become by guilt and vile habits, hardened into revenge, that preternatural feeling which may be termed the hope of despair.

Three nights from that meeting, Brandon's