His mind was all but gone
when he came here, but he had his rational intervals, and in these the
burden of his lonely life may have weighed heavily upon him. But it was
not such a heavy burden as I have borne--I, his gaoler, I who have
devoted my existence to the one task of guarding the family honour.'
He, whom she thus acknowledged as her husband, had sunk exhausted into a
chair near her. He took out his gold snuff-box, and refreshed himself
with a leisurely pinch of snuff, looking about him curiously all the
while, with a senile grin. That flash of passion which for a few minutes
had restored him to the full possession of his reason had burnt itself
out, and his mind had relapsed into the condition in which it had been
when he talked to Mary in the garden.
'My pipe, Steadman,' he said, looking towards the door; 'bring me my
pipe,' and then, impatiently, 'What has become of Steadman? He has been
getting inattentive--very inattentive.'
He got up, and moved slowly to the door, leaning on his crutch-stick,
his head sunk upon his breast, muttering to himself as he went; and thus
he vanished from them, like the spectre of some terrible ancestor which
had returned from the grave to announce the coming of calamity to a
doomed race.
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