“Mr. Grey, I do not mix tumblers for dogs,” said the lady, rather agitated: “if you will not take it,” and she held it once more before him, “here it goes for ever.” So saying she emptied the tumbler into a large globe of glass, in which some gold and silver fish were swimming their endless rounds. CHAPTER V This last specimen of Mrs. Felix Lorraine was somewhat too much even for the steeled nerves of Vivian Grey, and he sought his chamber for relief. “Is it possible? Can I believe my senses? Or has some demon, as we read of in old tales, mocked me in a magic mirror? I can believe anything. Oh! my heart is very sick! I once imagined that I was using this woman for my purpose. Is it possible that aught of good can come to one who is forced to make use of such evil instruments as these? A horrible 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? O 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.