His Grace — page 253: what you’re looking at

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

HIS GRACE. 247 yours. I have kept your shameful secret, and I should have kept it to my dying day, but for your impudent attempt to thrust yourself into my family. Oh, I understand your smile; your retort is easy, and you haven’t shrunk from making it already. I was willing to marry aforger. Yes; I was willing to marry him, because I cared for him and believed that he cared for me, and because I was too young to know that a man who had done sucha thing was certain to do other things as bad and worse. It is worthy of a Gascoigne to sneer at me for my folly. But now I am older and wiser ; now I am determined to save others from such a misfortune as nearly overtook me; and it is not the dread of being laughed at, or even of being disbelieved, that will deter me from doing my duty.” I broke silence for the first time to remark, “ That isn’t so badly put.”” The words were forced from me by my admiration for the genuine human excitement which had momentarily transformed a sour old woman into a sort of tragedy queen; but the chief actors, I suppose, did not feel any need of a chorus, for neither of them vouchsafed me the slighest attention. Hurst- bourne said gravely : “ Look here, Lady Deverell; you were badly treated once upon a time, I have no doubt, and you were en- titled to choose your own opportunity for paying off old scores. I don’t condemn you; but at the same time, I don’t think it lies in your mouth to condemnme. It’s a case of potand kettle. To serve my own selfish ends, I haven’t scrupled to commit a species of felony, and to serve your'own selfish ends, you haven’t scrupled to do things which, in my humble opinion, are just as felonious as if they were punishable by the law of the Gomichboo “S (@(0) m