[CHAPTER XXXIX.]
Captain Ernscliffe sat alone in the spacious library of his elegant mansion.
The windows were raised, and the rich curtains of silk and lace were drawn back, admitting the bracing October air.
The playful breeze lifted the dark, clustering locks from his high, white brow, and wafted to his senses the delicate perfume of roses and lilies that filled the vases on the marble mantel.
The evening sunshine lay in great, golden bars on the emerald-velvet carpet.
But none of these beautiful things attracted the attention of the master of this luxurious mansion.
He sat at his desk with an open book before him, and a half-smoked cigar between his white, aristocratic fingers; but the fire had died out on the tip of his prime Havana, and the idle breeze turned the leaves of his book at its wanton will.
He sat there, perfectly still and silent, in his great arm-chair, staring drearily before him, a stern, sad look on his handsome face, the fire of a jealous, all-consuming passion smouldering gloomily in the beautiful dark eyes, half veiled by their sweeping lashes.
He had been trying to read, but the strange unrest that possessed him was too great to admit of fixing his attention on the author, yet now he slowly repeated some lines that caught his eye as the light breeze fluttered the book leaves:
"Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung."