What offices could she do for him--what
influence exercise--how lighten the burden of his doom--how release him
from his chains? Nothing of this could she perform--and what did she
there? For sympathy, at such a moment, he cared little for such
sympathy, at least, as he could command. His pride and ambition,
heretofore, had led him to despise and undervalue the easy of
attainment. He was always grasping after the impossible. The fame which
he had lost for ever, grew doubly attractive to his mind's eye from the
knowledge of this fact. The society, which had expelled him from its
circle and its privileges, was an Eden in his imagination, simply on
that account. The love of Edith Colleton grew more desirable from her
scorn;--and the defeat of hopes so daring, made his fierce spirit writhe
within him, in all the pangs of disappointment, only neutralized by his
hope of revenge. And that hope was now gone; the dungeon and the doom
were all that met his eyes;--and what had she, his victim, to do in his
prison-cell, and with his prison feelings--she whom Providence, even in
her own despite, was now about to avenge? No wonder he turned away from
her in the bitterness of the thought which her appearance must
necessarily have inspired.
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