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50
VIVIAN GREY.

thought sometimes comes over my spirit. I fancy, that in this mysterious foreigner, that in this woman, I have met a kind of double of myself. The same wonderful knowledge of the human mind, the same sweetness of voice, the same miraculous management which has brought us both under the same roof: yet do I find her the most abandoned of all beings; a creature guilty of that, which, even in this guilty age, I thought was obsolete. And is it possible that I am like her? that I can resemble her? that even the indefinite shadow of my most unhallowed thought, can, for a moment, be as vile as her righteousness? Oh, God! the system of my existence seems to stop: I cannot breathe." He flung himself upon his bed, and felt for a moment as if he had quaffed the poisoned draught so lately offered.

"It is not so—it cannot be so—it shall not be so! In seeking the Marquess, I was unquestionably impelled by a mere feeling of self-