But he
showed no tendency to further guilt. His character appeared to have
been radically changed (as, indeed, from its shallowness, it well
might) by his miserable fate; or, it may be, the traits now seen in
him were portions of the same character, presenting itself in another
phase. Instead of any longer seeking to live in the sight of the
world, his impulse was to shrink into the nearest obscurity, and to
be unseen of men, were it possible, even while standing before their
eyes. He had no pride; it was all trodden in the dust. No
ostentation; for how could it survive, when there was nothing left of
Fauntleroy, save penury and shame! His very gait demonstrated that
he would gladly have faded out of view, and have crept about
invisibly, for the sake of sheltering himself from the irksomeness of
a human glance. Hardly, it was averred, within the memory of those
who knew him now, had he the hardihood to show his full front to the
world. He skulked in corners, and crept about in a sort of noonday
twilight, making himself gray and misty, at all hours, with his
morbid intolerance of sunshine.
In his torpid despair, however, he had done an act which that
condition of the spirit seems to prompt almost as often as prosperity
and hope. Fauntleroy was again married. He had taken to wife a
forlorn, meek-spirited, feeble young woman, a seamstress, whom he
found dwelling with her mother in a contiguous chamber of the old
gubernatorial residence. This poor phantom--as the beautiful and
noble companion of his former life had done brought him a daughter.
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