Page:Vivian Grey, Volume 2.djvu/221

 draught I once proffered. Know, wretch, that your race is run. Within five minutes, you will breathe a beggar, and an outcast. Your golden dreams are over—your cunning plans are circumvented—your ambitious hopes are crushed for ever—you are blighted in the very spring of your life. Oh! may you never die! May you wander for ever, the butt of the world's malice! and may the slow moving finger of scorn, point where'er you go at the ruined Charlatan!"

"Hah, hah! is it so, my lady? Oh! think you, that Vivian Grey would fall by a woman's wile? Oh! think you that Vivian Grey, could be crushed by such a worthless thing as you! Know, then, that your political intrigues have been as little concealed from me as your personal ones;—I have been acquainted with all. The Marquess has, himself, seen the Minister, and is more firmly stablished in his pride of place than ever. I have, myself, seen our col-