Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 268: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE INTERVIEW 251 found myself indulging in such fancies as these, I endeav- oured to banish them from my mind as visions Incapable of realization, and I essayed to settle my thoughts on a com- plete resignation to my present lot. Then again, I have experienced long, long intervals of a dull, listless, ard mournful apathy,—a sort of tomblike sensation, as i! though alive, I was already beneath the numbing influence of death. Ah! that was an awful state of feeling, and yet there was a depth of tranquillity in it, — an unnatural calm in which my senses were steeped. Had I given way to out- bursts of anguish and all the wildness of a terrible excite- ment, you would not have seen me as you see me now; you would have found me a haggard, wretched, withered thing. But I abandoned myself not to those torrents of feeling, those frenzied outbursts of emotion. Hope appeared to be dead within me, save and except during those occasional intervals when the fanciful vagaries of which I have spoken would rise up in my mind. But the general tenor of my existence for some years past may be described as the long, long death of hope, — that torpor of the senses which is experienced when one knows that there is nought left in the world to crave for. However, this day has suddenly changed all that! It has given me back happiness, it has filled me with new joy, it has lifted up my soul from the depths of the sepulchre where it was benumbed, it has inspired me with fresh vitality, and with a renovated confidence in the world and in Heaven.” And again, as she spoke, did Lady Everton lavish caresses upon the Marquis of Hagledean, and he also felt that this was a day of indescribable happiness for him. They sat together for more than an hour, talking of their feelings rather than of the circumstances which demanded their attention. They dwelt upon the emotions they experi- enced, and not upon the plans which they had to discuss and execute. They spoke of Adolphus, of Elizabeth, and of Frank, and the tender mother made the marquis give her the most lifelike description which words could frame of the personal appearance of each of those beloved children of hers. “ And now, my dear Paton,” she said, at length suddenly recollecting that after all their discourse nothing was settled, nothing resolved upon, “‘ we must think of the future as well as of the present and the past. You can full well understand | Comicboo Ss (C(O)