The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 257: what you’re looking at

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244 expected, that the blinds of the earriage were | destraction or precipitate their ruin—and then, drawn up and immoveable. In another quarter of an hour the vehicle stopped; and the tall footman, opening the door, unfastened the blinds and lowesed them. Florimel looked forth; and he at once recognised the neighbourhood where this halt took place—for the towers of Westminster Abbey were rearing their grey summits close by, in the pure moonbeams; and the arching rows of lamps marked with their tracery of glimmering light the curved viaduct of Westminster Bridge. The operation of unfastening and lowering the blinds only occupied a couple of minutes; and as the bell of the Abbey proclaimed the hour of eleven, the carriage rolled rapidly along over the bridge. “My God! what have I done? murmured Flo- rimel to himself, a sudden pang of remorse now inflicting upon his heart a torture like the stab of a poniard. “I have abandoned my Pauline—I have renounced that angel for a being whom I do not know! Alas! alas! I have been guilty of the most tremendous imprudence,— aye —and of the blackest perfidy towards Pauline !” Then, covering his face with his hands, Lord Florimel remained for upwards of five minutes in the deepest reverie,—a reverie in which, though his body was as motionless asa statue, his mind was travelling along the beaten road of the past with the speed of a race-horse. Al! the enormous folly of which he had been guilty in surrendering himself up to the influence of the unknown syren, now developed itself with an effect too sombre to be positively startling—too darkly gloomy to be actually intense or thrilling: but a sorrow, pro- found as a consternation and black as despair, ‘stole upon him—and he felt like a man who by one sinyle false step has ruined a brilliant position ‘or undermined a colossal fortune. Vainly did he endeavour to console himself—or rather to justify his own treachery towards Pau- line—by the reflection that she had of her own accord put an end to everything between them: again and again would recur the crushing and -overwhelming conviction that, if he really loved her, it was his duty to persevere in finding her out . and demanding an explanation of the past. Again and again, too, was the fact forced upon his contem- plation that she loved him, and that her cruelty would not endure for ever. But now, he had re- ‘signed her—resigned that being so beautiful and so charming : he had renounced her—and for the sake of a stranger ! These were the thoughts which now overhung his mind in the shape of the darkest, gloomiest, most sombre shadows ;—and he longed to order the carriage to stop—that he might leap forth and retrace his way homeward as rapidly as he could. But why did he not do so?—why did he remain voiceless and motionless upon the downy cushion of that carriage? Because, as the reader has already seen on more occasions than one, he lacked that moral courage which could alone arouse him to the point of energy adequate to sus- tain an effectual struggle against the influences which were urging him on in his career of folly: and moreover the spell of the syren's fascinations was still upon him! All the mystery by which she was surrounded—the power which she asserted over his own fortunes, either to save them from TRE MYSTERIES. the impression which her wanton disposition had produced upon his own ardent temperament,—to- gether with the solemn promise which he had given to pay implicit obedience to her commands and obey her injunctions,—all these circumstances, combined with a burning curiosity to solve the enigma of which she was the charming but dan- gerous object, exercised upon the mind of the young nobleman an influence which clung to him like the poisoned garment of Dejanira every time he endeavoured to throw it off. “No! I must accomplish my destiny—I must not essay any longer to battle against it!” he sud- denly exclaimed aloud, as he withdrew his hands from his face and woke up from his painful reverie. “Whatever be the results, I must pursue this ad- venture to the end! The Unknown offers to save me from ruin if I will marry her. ‘ Mahe me your wife, she said, ‘and I will stifle the law-suit which otherwise must 7 destroy you in respect to JSortune and despoil you of rank.’—Well, she loves me: and perhaps I may yet induce her to save me, even without becoming her husband. Then, Pau- line—my own sweet Pauline—I may find thee out, throw myself at thy feet, and make my peace with thee, my angel and my beauty !” Thus mused Lord Forimel now: and therefore the carriage continued to be whirled along the Kentish Road without a word of counter-order from his lips! CHAPTER CLXXXIV. THE MANIACS. A wEEK had elapsed since James Melmoth awoke to the consciousness that he was undergoing the treatment of a lunatic. He was in a stone dungeon, with a massive arched roof, and so far open in front that instead of having any masonry on that side, it was separated by a stout iron grating froma long narrow passage. It therefore resembled the den of a wild beast. There were six of these places all in a row; and they were denominated the Mad-Cells. In the middle of the iron gate set in the grating, was a small wicket about a foot square, and which was used for introducing the food of those prisoners who were too violent and dangerous for the keeper to enter their dens.. Each cell contained an iron bedstead screwed down to the stone pavement; and the bedding was of the strongest and coarsest material. No table—no chair—no article of furni- ture, in fine, save the iron bed, appeared in either of those cells. The light was admitted from narrow windows in the wall of the passage; and in winter- time the place was warmed by means of a fire at the end of that stone corridor. Such were the mad-cells of the old workhouse of which we are writing :—and it was in one of those accursed dens that James Melmoth had now been kept a prisoner for seven days. The reader will remember that the unfortu- nate man had leapt from his couch in the infir- mary to make an attack upon Mr. Thurston, and that he had fallen with a violence which deprived him of his senses. His restoration to life was fol- lowed by a terrible delirium in which he had gives GOH GOO SS