It
was not so much that he had grown older; for though the traces
of advancing life were visible he bore his age well, and seemed
to retain a wiry vigour and alertness. But the former aspect of
an intellectual and studious man, calm and quiet, which was what
she best remembered in him, had altogether vanished, and been
succeeded by an eager, searching, almost fierce, yet carefully
guarded look. It seemed to be his wish and purpose to mask this
expression with a smile, but the latter played him false, and
flickered over his visage so derisively that the spectator could
see his blackness all the better for it. Ever and anon, too,
there came a glare of red light out of his eyes, as if the old
man's soul were on fire and kept on smouldering duskily within
his breast, until by some casual puff of passion it was blown
into a momentary flame. This he repressed as speedily as
possible, and strove to look as if nothing of the kind had
happened.
In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of
man's faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will
only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's
office.
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