Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/262

254 the opposite side, in the rear of Brandon, a vast skreen stretched its slow length along, and relieved the unpopulated and, as it were, desolate comfort of the apartment.

Pale and imperfectly streamed the light upon Brandon's face, as he sat in his large chair, leaning his cheek on one hand, and gazing with the unconscious earnestness of abstraction on the clear fire. At that moment, a whole phalanx of gloomy thought was sweeping in successive array across his mind. His early ambition, his ill-omened marriage, the causes of his after-rise in the wrong-judging world, the first dawn of his reputation, his rapid and flattering successes, his present elevation, his aspiring hope of far higher office, and more patrician honours—all these phantoms passed before him in chequered shadow and light: but ever with each stalked one disquieting and dark remembrance—the loss of his only son.

Weaving his ambition with the wish to revive the pride of his hereditary name, every acquisition of fortune or of fame rendered him yet more anxious to find the only one who could perpetuate these hollow distinctions to his race.