When he reached the middle of Westminster Bridge, he paused and looked down into the water. The darkness had lifted a little, and a few stars had come out and were reflected in the river. The lamps upon the banks formed a long line of restless, shifting light, converging to a point in the far distance. An imaginative mind could have woven rare fancies out of the glimmering sheen in the river's heart, which seemed to pulse with spiritual life. Cathedral aisles, with dusky processions winding between, descending into the depths to make room for those that crowded behind. Lights upon a distant battlefield, a confused tangle of horses and fighting men, the wounded and dying crawling into the deep shades. A wash of the waves, and a wild _mèlée_ of dancers was created, lasting but a moment--as, indeed, did all the pictures,--and separating into peaceable units with the broadening out of the water. A ripple, almost musical in its poetic silence, bearing bride and bridegroom to love and joy. A band of rioters, upheaving, with waving limbs inextricably mingled, replaced by an orderly line of hooded monks, gliding on with folded arms. None of these pictures presented themselves to Mr. Fox-Cordery's imagination. He saw only two figures in the water: one of a dead man floating onward to oblivion; the other of a woman with peaceful, shining face, inviting him, with smiling eyes, to come to her embrace. The wish was father to the thought, and the figures were there as he had conjured them up. The face of the dead man brought no remorse to his soul; he was susceptible only of those affections in which his own personal safety and his own personal desires were concerned. It was for the death of this man and the possession of this woman that he had schemed and toiled. The man he hated, and had pursued to his ruin; the woman he loved and would have bartered his soul for. His passion for her had grown to such a pitch as to make him reckless of consequences; or, more properly speaking, blind to them. Had she yielded to his wooing in years gone by, he would have made a slave of her, and have tyrannized over her as he did over all with whom he had dealings. But she had not favored him, except in the way of friendship, and had given herself to the man he hated and despised. It can scarcely be said that a nature so mean and cruel as his was capable of pure and honest love; but passion and baffled desire took the place of love, and had obtained such complete possession of his senses that he was not master of himself where she was concerned. At his age the fever of the blood should have been cooled, but opposition and disappointment had produced a kind of frenzy in him; and, in addition, he had always been a law unto himself, ready to put his foot upon the neck of any living creature who ventured to obstruct his lightest wish.