Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 266: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

‘THE INTERVIEW 249 hair, and toothless mouth, still, still would he have ex- perienced for her the same love, the same sympathy, because his was no sensual passionnow. It was a chaste and holy affection, feeding itself upon the memories of the past, and sanctified by the existence of two beings who were the pledges of that love. We need hardly inform the reader that during Mrs. Jameson’s absence from the room where the marquis re- mained, he experienced an indescribable agitation, — a surging-up of a variety of emotions, at the prospect of so speedily meeting the mother of those children. About half an hour elapsed, — an interval that was short enough for worthy Mrs. Jameson to break to her ladyship the varied pieces of agreeable intelligence she had to impart, but an interval full long indeed for Lord Eagledean himself to en- dure the excitement of his stirred-up feelings. At length the door opened. Eagerly did he glance toward it, but only the housekeeper appeared. Her countenance was beaming with satisfaction and joy, and the marquis at least gathered thence the assurance that the glad tidings revealed to Lady Everton had produced no evil effects. Mrs. Jameson beck- oned him to follow and she led the way toward a drawing- room, at the threshold of which she stopped short for a moment. ‘“ My lord,” she said, in a low, whispering voice, ‘‘ I shall go no farther; you will enter there alone.’’ Thus speaking, she opened the door. Oh, at that instant the Marquis of Hagledean felt himself young again, — ay, felt as if twenty years had been struck off the sum of his existence, felt as 1 a new life were rejuvenescent in his veins! He sprang forward, the door closed behind him, a ery of joy reached his ears, a form flew to meet him, quicker than he himself was advancing, and the beloved one of other times — the beloved one too of the present moment — was clasped in his arms. Years of anguish, years of hopeless sorrow, years oI separation were all compensated for in these first few moments of ecstatic joy. It may seem strange to speak thus of that old man of sixty and that woman of forty-six, but their hearts had become young again, their memories travelled backward to the joys and delights of bygone times. Thus the outpourings of their rapture were as fervid and as enthusiastic as if it were a meeting of two Gomicdoo Ss (C(O)