The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 162: what you’re looking at

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

144 THE COURT OF LONDON “ Nor have you the power to prevent me from doing my best to save that innocent girl from your horrible machina- tions.”’ A dreadful expression of concentrated fury passed over the countenance of Bernard Audley, and he was about to give vent to some bitter words, perhaps even imprecations, but, checking himself, he said, in as mild a tone as he could possibly assume, ‘‘ Lilian, why do you interfere with me? I do not like to threaten you, but you really provoke me beyond endurance. Do you forget that you are altogether dependent upon me — I will not say my bounty.” ‘‘ Bounty! ”’ she echoed, in a strange, wild voice, while her eyes flashed sudden fires. ‘‘ Would you now taunt me with my dependence upon you for the morsel of bread that I eat? Think you that if you possessed all the treasures of the universe and were to lavish them upon me, you could compensate for that wreck of hopes which you have made and that blight of affections with which you have stricken me? There are moments when I hate you with a fiendish and malignant hatred, as much as at other times I still love you deeply and devotedly. But mark me well, Bernard Audley, there are likewise moments when I feel so horrible a sensation in my brain that it appears as if I were going mad, and in these intervals do I hate you with the most rancorous hatred, loathe you with the intensest loathing. If, then, by word or deed on your part, you only give the slightest impulse to these fevered thoughts of mine, if you only goad me one hair’s breadth beyond the point of wretched- ness and misery up to which my soul has been already tortured, I shall hate you without mitigation, loathe you without an interval of softness. Then, in that case, if you drive me mad altogether, I shall do you a mischief, I shall wreak upon you that vengeance which any other woman having endured such wrongs as mine would have mercilessly and pitilessly wreaked long years ago.”’ There was a power in the lady’s words and a wild glaring in her eyes which struck Bernard Audley with dismay. Transfixed to the spot and dumb with consternation, he neither moved nor spoke during the lengthy speech which his victim addressed to him; and when she concluded he still continued gazing upon her in a sort of stupor and be- wilderment of terror, not knowing how to act or what to say. comicloooks CO