The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 118: what you’re looking at

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

96 THE COURT OF LONDON ‘“‘ Holy God, no!” ejaculated the earl. ‘ Not for worlds would I harm a single hair of your head. But let me con- tinue, Eleanor,” he said, in a less excited voice. ‘‘ During the night which followed that terrible afternoon I never slept a wink. Like another Cain, did I wander to and fro, cursing my own fate, wishing that I was dead, and yet re- coiling from the idea of suicide. I reflected upon the wrong I had done you, Eleanor, and I reflected also upon the means of repairing it. By the confession which you had made to the Duchess of Devonshire, I knew that you were pure and innocent, and I knew also that you were unhappy. Nature had endowed you with strong passions, and it was natural, therefore, that you should seek to appease them. They were devouring you, and your sense of rectitude was put to a trial as unjust as it was intolerable. My God! how I pitied you, how I hated myself! Yours was a fate beyond all commiseration, mine an iniquity beyond all cursing. I vowed that something should be done: either I would lay violent hands upon myself and thus leave you free to marry another in due time, or I would actually seal my own dis- honour by throwing a lover, a seducer, a paramour in your way. Yes, these were the alternatives between which I had to choose.” “Oh, it covers me with shame, it weighs me down with confusion, to hear you thus unveil your feelings concerning me,” said Eleanor, bending down her head to conceal the blushes that suffused her cheeks, those blushes that over- spread even her neck and her bosom. ‘“‘ Heaven alone knows what a night of torture and misery I passed,”’ continued the nobleman. “ Daylight brought me no relief, and I went forth to wander in the parks in a state of mind enviable only by a wretch about to be hanged. The mendicants who passed me, and on whom I bestowed my alms, little thought how cheerfully I would have exchanged conditions with them. In the afternoon I called upon a medical practitioner, a Mr. Thurston residing in May Fair. I promised him largely, but he could give me no hope. = I went away distracted. On my return home again, I resolved upon self-destruction. But better feelings sprang up in my mind at the very instant when I was about to place the muzzle of a pistol in my mouth. Then I determined to live, but to adopt that other alternative.”’ (Gi @) LG 6)(0)©)