though in Brandon it assumed the stately cast of majesty, and in
Clifford it seemed the desperate sternness of the bravo, stamped itself
in both. Though Clifford ceased, he did not resume his seat, but stood
in the same attitude as that in which he had reversed the order of
things, and merged the petitioner in the accuser; and Brandon himself,
without speaking or moving, continued still to survey him; so, with
erect fronts and marble countenances, in which what was defying and
resolute did not altogether quell the mortal leaven of pain and dread,
they looked as might have looked the two men in the Eastern story who
had the power of gazing each other unto death.

What at that moment was raging in Brandon's heart, it is in vain to
guess. He doubted not for a moment that he beheld before him his long
lost, his anxiously demanded son! Every fibre, every corner of his
complex and gloomy soul, that certainly reached, and blasted with a
hideous and irresistible glare. The earliest, perhaps the strongest,
though often the least acknowledged principle of his mind was the desire
to rebuild the fallen honours of his house; its last scion he now beheld
before him, covered with the darkest ignominies of the law! He had
coveted worldly honours; he beheld their legitimate successor in a
convicted felon! He had garnered the few affections he had spared from
the objects of pride and ambition, in his son. That son he was about
to adjudge to the gibbet and the hangman! Of late he had increased the
hopes of regaining his lost treasure, even to an exultant certainty. Lo!
the hopes were accomplished! How? With these thoughts warring, in what
manner we dare not even by an epithet express, within him, we may cast
one hasty glance on the horror of aggravation they endured, when he
heard the prisoner accuse Him as the cause of his present doom, and felt
himself at once the murderer and the judge of his son!

Minutes had elapsed since the voice of the prisoner ceased; and Brandon
now drew forth the black cap. As he placed it slowly over his brows, the
increasing and corpse-like whiteness of his face became more glaringly
visible, by the contrast which this dread head-gear presented. Twice as
he essayed to speak his voice failed him, and an indistinct murmur came
forth from his hueless lips, and died away like a fitful and feeble
wind. But with the third effort the resolution and long self-tyranny of
the man conquered, and his voice went clear and