The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 236: what you’re looking at

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

TUR MYSTERIES OF THA COURT. “And last night,” responded the physician, “when Edmund alept, I entered his chamber etealthily—he awoke not—and I discovered+——” ‘Enough !’’ interrupted Lady Saxondale, in a low thick voice: “think you that I cannot com- “Oh! think not, think not,” interrupted the physician, “that I can drag on my miserable existence with this dreadful load upon my con- science! No: whatever be the results either to But in one sense Lady Saxondale had mistaken Dr. Ferney’s disposition. Believing that the love he had cherished for her was allied with sensuous passion, she thought to subdue him altogether, mose firmly than ever to her interests; and in order to accomplish this, the unprincipled woman to sbandon herself to him. But she smote him only with pity and ; passion. “ Lady Saxondale,” he said, gasing upon her eountenance with an expression ineffably oompas- sionate, and not upon that bared bosom with de- sire,—“ you know me not—you understand me not ! Were you not thus frantic—thus driven to despe- me to the most painful degree. baa» 1 beseech of you P'—and he suddenly averted eyes. : Lady Saxondale hastened to do his bidding, for she feared lest some one should enter: but still she saw that her empire over the physician was re- gained through the medium of the pity with which he was inspired, if not by the passion which she . | had sought to excite. Little, however, did it mat- :} ter to her how ho had become enmeshed again in her silken chains, so long as he was thus rendered tive. “‘'Yea—you have misunderstood me,” he went on to observe: “you have not rightly comprehended my character. For nineteen long years have I loved you—but with a love the holiest, the chastest, the purest. Alas! I feel that this love is stronger than myself: it has become interwoven with the very principles of my existence. Were you a fiend in female shape, J must still love you all the same: the interview of this hour proves to me that it is 20! I came to give you the positive assurance that I would perform an act of duty at all and any risk: and, behold! I am woak and powerless, dis- armed, in your presence. No, no,” he continued, in a voice tremulous with emotion, and almost as if he in his turn had become a suppliant, “TI conjure you not to lay violent hands upon your- self! Ob, not for worlds would I sully the purity of that love—the sanctity of that adoration—which I have experienced for you! You yourself may. be the foulest and uncleanest wretch alive : but my love has been a worship—and it shall not be pol- luted. I will not sell my compassion for the en- joyment of your charms: I shudder at the idea of ing you to abandon yourself to my embraces as the price of your security. I will not hurt a single hair of your head. No—by heaven, no! I will drag about with me my remorse as a prisoner his chain: the dread secrets of which my heart is a depositary, may eat like iron into tha heart—may corrode every fine feeling there—may cover with rust the brightest sentiments of my soul: but still I will not seek relief for that har- rowed conscience by betraying you! I will bea criminal—I will do anything sooner than drive you to despair. See, Lady Saxondale—see, Harriet— what a power you wield over me !———Oh, I shud- der when I think of it—and yet do I kiss tho chain !”? , It is impossible to convey to the reader an idea of those highly-wrought feelings which inspired the .physician as he thus gave vehement utterance to that long and partially broken speech. There was & man naturally endowed with the noblest senti- ments and loftiest thoughte—a man of splendid genius and brilliant intellect—a man who within himself possessed every element of virtue, and who amongst the good of this world might have shono as the best,—there was this man, we say, altered, —changed,—with feelings distorted, sentiments warped, mind made morbid, soul rendered attenu- ate,—and all by the indomitable influence of the COLL (C DOO CS (GO)