The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 129: what you’re looking at

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

LORD AND LADY HOLDERNESS 107 with that glowing enthusiasm which I shall testify toward you if you keep your promise and go hand in hand with me upon the path of crime. Yes, crime, my husband, crime,’’ she repeated, the horrible word sounding strange when wafted to the ear by the witching melody of such a voice; ‘‘ for crime shall cement our love, crime shall consolidate our affections. By plunging into the abyss of crime to the same depth, so that one shall be as deeply stained as the other, by ever keeping side by side in this enterprise of darkness and iniquity, so that one shall be neither before nor behind the other, by establishing, in a word, a perfect equality in our ominous career, we shall reciprocate the same regard, exchange the same amount of attachment, and have our hearts knit together by ties as firm on one side as on the other. And when we have learned to love each other in this manner and upon this system,’ continued Fernanda, her hideous sophistry flowing all the time in strains the most liquid and charming to the ear, as the pearly stream which the enemy has poisoned glides on into the heart of the besieged city, “‘ then will you find that I am capable of ador- ing you with an adoration such as woman never bestowed on man before, that I will lavish upon you the tenderest caresses, even as I will surround you by the most delicate and unwearied attentions, and that, whether in the senti- ment of love or in the voluptuousness of amorous enjoy- ment, I will so envelop your mind in blissful fascinations and so instil into your soul a sense of the most ravishing delights, that you shall deem such an amount of bliss cheaply purchased by even the darkest crimes.” ““T am thine, wholly thine, Fernanda,’’ murmured the nobleman, drinking in the poison of the honeyed words which his wife breathed in his ears, and now experiencing a species of intoxication from the effects of the warm, impas- sioned, and amorous looks which she tutored herself to cast upon him. “ Wert thou a fiend in human shape,” added Lord Holderness, enthusiastically, ‘I would say yea to everything thou mightest demand, even though it were to _ involve the surrender of my own soul.” “1 see that I shall soon love you far more tenderly than ever I loved Arthur Eaton in the first flush of that glowing passion which was alike my strength and my weakness,” said her ladyship, still retaining her seat upon her husband’s CORNUC } KS {