Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Phantom Fortune, a Novel by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
page 291 of 654 (44%)
poison-bag plucked out of his jaw! The venom grows again, child--the
snake's venom--but youth never comes back: Old, and helpless, and
harmless!'

Again Mary tried to move away, but those evil eyes held her as if she
were a bird riveted by the gaze of a serpent.

'Why do you shrink away?' asked the old man, frowning at her. 'Sit down
here, and let me talk to you. I am accustomed to be obeyed'

Old and feeble and shrunken as he was, there was a power in his tone of
command which Mary was unable to resist. She felt very sure that he was
imbecile or mad. She knew that madmen are apt to imagine themselves
great personages, and to take upon themselves, with a wonderful power of
impersonation, the dignity and authority of their imaginary rank; and
she supposed that it must be thus with this strange old man. She
struggled against her sense of terror. After all there could be no real
danger, in the broad daylight, within the precincts of her own home,
within call of the household.

She seated herself on the bench by the unknown, willing to humour him a
little; and he turned himself about slowly, as if every bone in his body
were stiff with age, and looked at her with a deliberate scrutiny.




CHAPTER XXIV.

'NOW NOTHING LEFT TO LOVE OR HATE.'
DigitalOcean Referral Badge