The attack was a long and severe one, delaying for many
weeks their return to London, where Mr. Redmain declared he must
be, at any risk, before the end of November.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
LYDGATE STEEET.
Letty's whole life was now gathered about her boy, and she
thought little, comparatively, about Tom. And Tom thought so
little about her that he did not perceive the difference. When he
came home, he was always in a hurry to be gone again. He had
always something important to do, but it never showed itself to
Letty in the shape of money. He gave her a little now and then,
of course, and she made it go incredibly far, but it was ever
with more of a grudge that he gave it. The influence over him of
Sepia was scarcely less now that she was gone; but, if she cared
for him at all, it was mainly that, being now not a little stale-
hearted, his devotion reminded her pleasurably of a time when
other passions than those of self-preservation were strongest in
her; and her favor even now tended only to the increase of Tom's
growing disappointment, for, like Macbeth, he had begun already
to consider life but a poor affair. Across the cloud of this
death gleamed, certainly, the flashing of Sepia's eyes, or the
softly infolding dawn of her smile, but only, the next hour, nay,
the next moment, to leave all darker than before. Precious is the
favor of any true, good woman, be she what else she may; but what
is the favor of one without heart or faith or self-giving? Yet is
there testimony only too strong and terrible to the demoniacal
power, enslaving and absorbing as the arms of the kraken, of an
evil woman over an imaginative youth.
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