the
real enchanter, he turned once more into the room which he had left to
visit Isabel. He had pledged his personal attendance at an important
motion in the House of Commons for that night, and some political papers
were left upon his table which he had promised to give to one of the
members of his party. He entered the room, purposing to stay only a
minute; an hour passed before he left it: and his servant afterwards
observed that, on giving him some orders as he passed through the hall
to the carriage, his cheek was as white as marble, and that his step,
usually so haughty and firm, reeled and trembled like a fainting man's.
Dark and inexplicable Fate! weaver of wild contrasts, demon of this
hoary and old world, that movest through it, as a spirit moveth over
the waters, filling the depths of things with a solemn mystery and an
everlasting change! Thou sweepest over our graves, and Joy is born from
the ashes: thou sweepest over Joy, and lo, it is a grave! Engine and
tool of the Almighty, whose years cannot fade, thou changest the earth
as a garment, and as a vesture it is changed; thou makest it one
vast sepulchre and womb united, swallowing and creating life! and
reproducing, over and over, from age to age, from the birth of creation
to the creation's doom, the same dust and atoms which were our fathers,
and which are the sole heirlooms that through countless generations they
bequeath and perpetuate to their sons.

CHAPTER LXXXVI.

Methinks, before the issue of our fate,
A spirit moves within us, and impels
The passion of a prophet to our lips.--ANONYMOUS.

O vitae Philosophia dux, virtutis indagatrix!-CICERO.
["O Philosophy, conductress of life, searcher after virtue!"]

Upon leaving the House of Commons, Mordaunt was accosted by Lord
Ulswater, who had just taken his seat in the Upper House. Whatever
abstraction or whatever weakness Mordaunt might have manifested before
he had left his home, he had now entirely conquered both; and it was
with his usual collected address that he replied to Lord Ulswater's
salutations, and congratulated him on his change of name and accession
of honours.

It was a night of uncommon calm and beauty; and, although the moon
was not visible, the frosty and clear sky, "clad in the lustre of its
thousand stars," [Marlowe] seemed scarcely to mourn either the hallowing
light or the breathing poesy of her presence; and when Lord Ulswater
proposed that Mordaunt should di