Quilp crept to the window as they passed in the street below, and
listened. Trent was pronouncing an encomium upon his wife, and they
were both wondering by what enchantment she had been brought to
marry such a misshapen wretch as he. The dwarf after watching their
retreating shadows with a wider grin than his face had yet
displayed, stole softly in the dark to bed.
In this hatching of their scheme, neither Trent nor Quilp had had
one thought about the happiness or misery of poor innocent Nell. It
would have been strange if the careless profligate, who was the
butt of both, had been harassed by any such consideration; for his
high opinion of his own merits and deserts rendered the project
rather a laudable one than otherwise; and if he had been visited by
so unwonted a guest as reflection, he would--being a brute only in
the gratification of his appetites--have soothed his conscience
with the plea that he did not mean to beat or kill his wife, and
would therefore, after all said and done, be a very tolerable,
average husband.
CHAPTER 24
It was not until they were quite exhausted and could no longer
maintain the pace at which they had fled from the race-ground, that
the old man and the child ventured to stop, and sit down to rest
upon the borders of a little wood.
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