The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 163: what you’re looking at

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

THE MOTHER AND DAUGHTER 145 ‘Ah! you are afraid of me? ”’ said Lilian, speaking with less excitement but perhaps with more real bitterness in her words as she thus resumed her address. ‘‘ Bernard Audley, I know you well, and reading your wicked heart so accurately as I do, it is a wonder that I am even able to love you at all, and to think of you with an affectionate interest which is at times as deep as it was when first you won my attachment. Think you that I comprehend not the motive that has hith- erto induced you to allow me the pittance which I[ receive yearly at your hands? It is not bestowed upon me through love, but because you stand in terror of me. You call me your evil genius, and why? Is it because I have more than once saved you from perpetrating crimes that would per- haps have sent you to the scaffold? Is it because I have saved you from becoming the ravisher of innocence? We were speaking ere now of Louisa Stanley. What, think you, would have been your fate had I not interposed in time to prevent the crowning catastrophe in the cathedral crypt? And have you forgotten how I wrote an earnest and prayer- ful letter to the young maiden, beseeching her to keep the outrage secret and spare you an exposure which would have driven you from the Church, stripped your gown from your back, and despoiled you of the means of existence? Ah! so far from being your evil genius, [ have been your good genius. And now, because I again step forward to warn you against giving unbridled license to this frenzied passion which you cherish for Louisa, you upbraid me, you taunt me with my dependence upon you; and in your very words is there a covert threat that you will withdraw my pittance if I continue to interfere with your pleasures. Unhappy man, does no warning voice whisper in your soul that those pleas- ures, 1f such they be, may conduct you to ruin and disgrace? ”’ ‘“‘ Lilian,” said Bernard Audley, who during this second speech had found leisure to regain his composure, ‘‘ I.do not wish to anger you, nor am I desirous that disagreeable words should pass between us. But since we thus stand confronted once more, and you have spoken your mind so plainly, since, also, you have chosen to refer in such pointed terms not only to the past, but likewise to our relative positions, let me once for all beg and entreat that you will abstain from any further interference in my pursuits. I have long, long ceased to meddle with yours.” (C(O) nn) GDoOo <Si in