Ellen Percy; or, The Memoirs of an Actress — page 68: what you’re looking at

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

he ese TTL TE LL TT -words produced upon Edwin St. Clair! ELLEN PERCY; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF AN ACTRESS. wife, because I love you not! is the only fortune I possess, Take it not away from me! ruin not my good name! It would be an act that sooner or later you must bitterly, bit- terly repent !” “ Ellen, I am. merciless !” responded St. Clair, who was fearfully excited: for bis lips were ashy white, and his whole frame was trembling ner- vously. “Swear to become my bride?” “ Never!” I gasped. ‘“ Any sacrifice sooner !” “Then that sacrifice shall you make!” he ex- claimed: and Oh! it was with such vindictive fierceness that.he spoke, I even trembled for my life. .“Go, Ellen—with the taint of dishonour upon your name—the blight of degradation upon your repute! Go—and your exit is to be made from a house belonging to the veriest debauchee whose notorious profligacies ever made a private dwelling more infamous than the lowest den of crime! Go forth, I say—dishonoured, though in- nocent—polluted, though stainless! Even on the virgin rosebud rests the slime of the snail; and so it shall be now with the freshness of thy virgin name !” “Oh! you are a fiend!” I ejaculated, clasping my hands in the anguish of despair. “A fiend? Yes—to you!’ he cried: and as his eyes appeared to shoot forth fire, while his ashy lips were quivering over his set teeth, he advanced towards me, exclaiming, “ By hansen, I | have a mind to render you the victim of that very dishonour which my tongue shall proclaim against you!” * Wretch!” I cried: point of sending a shriek pealing forth from my lips, when a sudden idea struck me. An idea? Oh, it was a recollection! Strangely | absorbing must hitherto have been the whole scene, in its effects of blending terror and elo- quence, enthralling language and frightful menace —language of love and language of hate—Oh! absorbing must it have been that this recollection did not strike me before. Yet so it was. It was only now in this which appeared to be the moment | of my utter emergency, that the remembrance flashed in unto my brain! My eyes fell upon a vase of flowers standing in the centre of a superb table; and as St. Clair came advancing toward me, with looks that too well indicated his readiness for any villany, I snatched forth a large and beautiful white rose—and ex- tending it towards him, exclaimed, “ Do you recog- nise the symbol ?” Oh! had some unseen lightning suddenly piercec through roof and ceiling, or window, or wall, to smite him with its withering influence Pp— had a spectre from the dead, invisible to my eyes, suddenly sprung up through earth and floor to scare him with its hideous presence? Never, never shall I forget the terrible, the appalling, the stupendous effect which that flower and those White as a sheet became his countenance: rigid in their strong expression of agony grew his features; -and all the suddenly excited emotions of his soul congealed into horror’s most terrific impress upon his face, He staggered back, and sank like one annihilated upon a chair. Like Aladdin in the Eastern Tale, I was at first horrified and astounded at the effect produced Oh! my reputation | and I was on the very | = which claimed a portion of my 55 by the talisman placed in my hands: but my feel- ings quickly experienced a revulsion, turning them into a consummate joy at this proof that my enemy was in every way defeated and that I myself was in every sense victorious, Iissued from the room: methought I heard Edwin St. Clair gasp forth my name, as if to bid me stay: but if it were so, his appeal passed un- heeded. No one was on the landing: my ears caught the sounds of the giggling laughter of the girls in the back room: I hurried down the stair- case, and emerged from the house. Entering the hackney-coach, I ordered the driver to take me back to the street where Me- lissa dwelt; and during the route thither it may be easily supposed that I reflected on all that had occurred at the house which I had just left Po- tent indeed had proved the effect of the talisman with which Lady Lilla Essendine had provided me: but of its meaning I remained utterly ignorant. Whatsoever the flower symbolised, was still a perfect mystery to me. I had however no fear that St. Clair would carry into operation his horrible threats: there was no doubt as to the fact that I had by some unknown means reduced him to the most abject position of horror and mental wretchedness. And as I thus reflected, how grateful—how deeply, deeply grateful did I feel towards Lady Lilla Essendine ! But now I began to ask myself what course I should pursue in reference to Melissa Harrison ? She had evidently nothing to hope for either her- self or her babe at the hands of the unprincipled Colonel Bellew. This communication must at ‘least. be made to her: but still I did not choose ! to enhance her affliction by giving her any addi- tional proofs of the villany and profligacy of that man; there was no necessity to make her ac- quainted with my previous knowledge of him, nor _to describe the manner in which I had found him _passing his forenoon, I therefore made up my mind to deal as succinctly with the affair as pos- sible. That she knew him under a feigned name, was evident enough: forifshe had been acquainted with his real one, she would no doubt have men- tioned it to me. In the midst of my meditations, there were two attention. In the first place, the house which I had just visited was not the same to which I had been conveyed on the evening of the dinner at Mr. Parks’s; and therefore methought that Colonel Bellew must have two distinct establishments, so that he might all the more conveniently and exten- sively carry on his profligate career. The other circumstance to which I have alluded, was the re- newed intimacy evidently subsisting between Cap- tain St. Clair and the profligate Colonel. IL must confess that I began to have suspicions as to whether that intimacy had ever been interrupted, and whether everything I had heard in respect to the duel were a reality or not. On these points, however, I need not now dwell. Suffice it to add that in respect to Captain St. Clair, I had seen him with his mask thrown off—I had beheld him in the true fiendishness of his character—l had been compelled to shudder at the revelation of a monster of wickedness hitherto concealed beneath one of the most perfect human shapes. Ah! no longer did I Goubt that all I had learnt from the lips of renner errr een nnn cncc erences i A A I es NR LS LS ern enty_* (COINMUCE IOOkK com