more bursting into a withering laughter, as he surveyed the terror which
he had excited, he added, "No, no: thou art too vile!" and, dashing the
hypocrite against the wall of a neighbouring house, he strode away.

Recovering himself slowly, and trembling with rage and fear, Crauford
gazed round, expecting yet to find he had sported too far with the
passions he had sought to control. When, however, he had fully satisfied
himself that Glendower was gone, all his wrathful and angry feelings
returned with redoubled force. But their most biting torture was the
consciousness of their impotence. For after the first paroxysm of rage
had subsided he saw, too clearly, that his threat could not be executed
without incurring the most imminent danger of discovery. High as his
character stood, it was possible that no charge against him might excite
suspicion, but a word might cause inquiry, and inquiry would be ruin.
Forced, therefore, to stomach his failure, his indignation, his shame,
his hatred, and his vengeance, his own heart became a punishment almost
adequate to his vices.

"But my foe will die," said he, clinching his fist so firmly that the
nails almost brought blood from the palm; "he will starve, famish, and
see them--his wife, his child--perish first! I shall have my triumph,
though I shall not witness it. But now, away to my villa: there, at
least, will be some one whom I can mock and beat and trample, if I will!
Would--would--would that I were that very man, destitute as he is! His
neck, at least, is safe: if he dies, it will not be upon the gallows,
nor among the hootings of the mob! Oh, horror! horror! What are my
villa, my wine, my women, with that black thought ever following me like
a shadow? Who, who while an avalanche is sailing over him, who would sit
down to feast?"

Leaving this man to shun or be overtaken by Fate, we return to
Glendower. It is needless to say that Crauford visited him no more; and,
indeed, shortly afterwards Glendower again changed his home. But
every day and every hour brought new strength to the disease which
was creeping and burning through the veins of the devoted wife; and
Glendower, who saw on earth nothing before them but a jail, from which
as yet they had been miraculously delivered, repined not as he beheld
her approach to a gentler and benigner home. Often he sat, as she was
bending over their child, and gazed upon her cheek with an insane and
fearful joy at the characters which