over misery, to flatter
yourself that there is not a single being who cares for your existence,
and not a single circumstance to make that existence desirable: there
is wild witchery in it, which we doubt whether opium can reach, and are
sure that wine cannot.

And the Duke! He soon left the uncle and nephew to their miserable
speculations about the state of the poll, and took his sullen way,
with the air of Ajax, to the terrace. Here he stalked along in a fierce
reverie; asked why he had been born; why he did not die; why he should
live, and so on. His wounded pride, which had borne so much, fairly
got the mastery, and revenged itself for all insults on Love, whom it
ejected most scurvily. He blushed to think how he had humiliated
himself before her. She was the cause of that humiliation, and of every
disagreeable sensation that he was experiencing. He began, therefore, to
imprecate vengeance, walked himself into a fair, cold-hearted, malicious
passion, and avowed most distinctly that he hated her. As for him, most
ardently he hoped that, some day or other, they might again meet at
six o'clock in the morning in Kensington Gardens, but in a different
relation to each other.

It was dark when he entered the Castle. He was about ascending to his
own room, when he determined not to be cowed, and resolved to show
himself the regardless witness of their mutual loves: so he repaired to
the drawing-room. At one end of this very spacious apartment, Mr. Dacre
and Arundel were walking in deep converse; at the other sat Miss Dacre
at a table reading. The Duke seized a chair without looking at her,
dragged it along to the fireplace, and there seating himself, with his
arms folded, his feet on the fender, and his chair tilting, he appeared
to be lost in the abstracting contemplation of the consuming fuel.

Some minutes had passed, when a slight sound, like a fluttering bird,
made him look up: Miss Dacre was standing at his side.

'Is your head better?' she asked him, in a soft voice.

'Thank you, it is quite well,' he replied, in a sullen one.

There was a moment's pause, and then she again spoke.

'I am sure you are not well.'

'Perfectly, thank you.'

'Something has happened, then,' she said, rather imploringly.

'What should have happened?' he rejoined, pettishly.

'You are very strange; very unlike what you always are.'

'What I always am is of no consequence to myself, or to anyone else;
and as for what I am now,