The floor was scattered with the bread-crumbs and charcoal dust; he looked behind the easel, and saw his own portrait, in the skeleton.
At the first glimpse of him, Lucy started not, nor stirred; but as if her own wand had there enchanted her, sat tranced.
'Dead embers of departed fires lie by thee, thou pale girl; with dead embers thou seekest to relume the flame of all extinguished love! Waste not so that bread; eat it—in bitterness!'
He turned, and entered the corridor, and then, with outstretched arms, paused between the two outer doors of Isabel and Lucy.
'For ye two, my most undiluted prayer is now, that from your here unseen and frozen chairs ye may never stir alive;—the fool of Truth, the fool of Virtue, the fool of Fate, now quits ye forever!'
As he now sped down the long winding passage, someone eagerly hailed him from a stair.
'What, what, my boy? where now in such a squally hurry? Hallo, I say!'
But without heeding him at all, Pierre drove on. Millthorpe looked anxiously and alarmedly after him a moment, then made a movement in pursuit, but paused again.
'There was ever a black vein in this Glendinning; and now that vein is swelled, as if it were just one peg above a tourniquet drawn over-tight. I scarce durst dog him now; yet my heart misgives me that I should.—Shall I go to his rooms and ask what black thing this is that hath befallen him?—No; not yet;—might be thought officious—they say I'm given to that. I'll wait; something may turn up soon. I'll into the front street, and saunter some; and then—we'll see.'
