Agnes: A Tale of the Streets — page 42: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A416 _and speaking in a hollow voico; “you will not mention this claewhere P” * By tho living God,” cried Andrew, starting up from his chair, “ I will make a clean breast of it and divulge everything! Ob, yes!—for if I did not, it would all haunt me as a remorse ever- more!” “ Flave mercy !—pity me! pity my poor sister !” ~——and nothing could be more abject than the de- meanour of Hector Hardress now. “I dare not promise anything! No, no! I will tell Bowman everything! I swear by all my hopes of salvation’—and he thus borrowed the very worcs which Hardress had ere now sug- gested for another purpose,—" I swear by all my hopes of salvation, that I will confess every de- tail, and Bowman shall know it all in the morn- “Well tliuz,if such be your resolve,” murmured Hector, in almost a dying tone, “ promise me— promise me that you will do naught until the mornirg ?” “This pledge I willingly give you,” answered Hailes. ‘“ God knows I do not seek to send your sister and yourself to the scaffold! Take time to escape !—begone |” Tho miserable Hardress saw that he had ob- tained from tho young man the utmost concession that it was possible to draw from him; and he hurried from the room in e state of mind that may be better conccived than described, CIIAPTER LXIX, THE LACDANUM, Wuen tho door closed behind Hector, Androw Hailes stuod for nearly a minute gazing upon the vacancy which the retreating fourm had just now filled: he seemed as if he were so bewildered and astounded that he could scarcely put faith in the evidence of his own scnscs. At length, abruptly turning towards the falscly-styled Cesario, he exclaimed, “ My doar Lisetta, from what have you saved mo! How deeply grateful I ought to be to you! Oh, I should have yiclded—yes, I should have yielded to his threats and represonta- tions |” “ Yos—you would have yielded,” interjected the disguised female, with momentary accents of contompt: but the noxt instant flinging a look of tenderness upon Hailes, she added, “ And now you will not think that it has beon to no purpose 1 persisted in accompanying you!” “TI repeat, Lisetta,” ejaculated Andrew, “ that I owo you an immense debt of gratitude! Jose- phine Illardress a murderess! — Josopbine the same whom [| took to be, some loose female, or at least some woman of lax morals !’”’ “And doubtless such was she,” interjected Li- setta; “for Tam very mugh mistaken if Theodore Clifford, whom her handghot dead upon the field, did not perish on account of the very offence for which ber brutal.bully of a brother would bave just now taken your life, or else have forced you into the atonoment of a marriage which could not have been otherwise than hateful to your feel- ings.” AGNES; OR, BEAUTY AND PLEASURE. * Yes—truly!” cried Tailes: ‘“ Jusephino is a wanton and a demirep! How sad that ono so eminently beautiful, so accomplished in mind, and so pleasing in manners, should be so frail—su , wicked! But how learnt you, Lisetta, tho terrible secret which you just now rovealed so oppor- tunely P” “At Boulogne I beheld a young lady whom I thought I knew—a second glance convinced me that I had seen her before—and the astounding idea flashed to my brain that this was the same person whom you brought to the house at Notting Hill and introduced as Br. Gudolphin. I listenod to a conversation which took place betwixt that lady and Mr. Hardress : I discovered who she was -—I learnt also the terrible crime of which she had been guilty, and how on tho night of that fatal duel her own brother had bade her secure a pistol about her person that she might inflict vengeance on Theodore Clifford, in case his weapon —-I mean the weapon of that brothor—should fail in its aim!” “Good heavens!” ejaculated MTailes, “ what guilt! what wickedness! Oh, yes! Josephine must have been Cliffurd’s victim !—for under no other circumstances would a young and tenderly nurtured Jady become nerved to enter upon such a courso! «But why, Lisetta, when you dis- covered all this at Boulogne, did you nut tell me P” The disguised female blushed and remained silent for nearly a minute—at tho expiration of which sho said, “I thought if I might possibly be enabled to render you a servico—if 1 determined to watch these proceedings to their fullest extent, and interfere only at the moment when they wore coming to a crisis,~—in a word, Andrew, if I choso to conduct the business after my own fashion, is there any harm, since the result is to your advan- tage P” " ‘No, no, Lisctta-—dear Lisetta! mean that thero was any harm !” “ Anc now you are saved from marriage with a wanton,” continued the young Italian woman,— “not meroly a wanton, but a murderess !—and I am happy that ’tis I who havo been enabled thus to save you! I overheard every syllable that passed betwoon the villain Flector Hardress and yourself from the moment that the dossert was placed upon the table and he suggested that I should be ordered to leave the room and go and amuse myself elsewhere, The allusion you made to your intorview this afternoon with Mr. Bow- man did not oscape me; and thus you may have observed how I adopted your own words, when I threatened Mr. Hardress just now that the lawyer should be placed in a position to lay his hand upon the shoulder of the young ludy who played the part of Mr. Godolphin !” * Lisetta, you have rendered me an immenso service,” said Hailes, “and it shall not be for- gotten. No—never!” We will hero explain how i¢ was tho young Italian woman was in attendance upon Andrew Hailes, and wearing masculine apparel. We must therefore proceed tu observe retrospectively, that when Andrew had given bail, the day after the duel, for his appearance at a future day, he fancied that he was going to enjoy in London the renown of the advontures through which he had I did not MIGIOO CO S