The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

THE OUTRAGED NOBLEMAN 39 amour with the countess could continue much longer un- suspected or unperceived? Thus, in either case and under any circumstances, Ramsey was living in the constant peril of expulsion from the home which he had found so miraculously and from the hospitality which he had abused so atrociously. The earl’s bounty had supplied him with some ready money; but this amount was totally insufficient to enable him to escape from the country and fly to some foreign clime. And yet he must lose no time in thus ensuring his safety. What, then, was to be done? He had calculated that the countess possessed costly jewels and at least some available pecuniary resources ; and he resolved, therefore, to make her the companion of his flight. Besides, he had just so much regard for her as any profligate voluptuary experiences for a beautiful mistress; and he, moreover, thought it probable that a lady of her rank and connections would never be left by her relatives without some amount of income, happen what might. These were the iialesaa which the cold-blooded villain had made; and the reader is now in possession of the key to his conduct with regard to Eleanor. We have shown how well he succeeded in overruling the last scruples which remained in the bosom of the too confiding lady, and how triumphant was his persuasion that she who had already surrendered to him her honour in secret would make a public sacrifice of home, TEpPOM, friends, and relatives, for his sake. Glorying in that success, rejoicing in that triumph, Philip Ramsey was pacing his apartment, when the door opened slowly and the Earl of Desborough staggered into his pres- ence. The ghastly pallor of the nobleman’s countenance, the - gtrange workings of his features, the wild expression of his eyes, the visible convulsion of his limbs, and the tottering unevenness in his pace, — all these appearances instantly struck Ramsey with dismay and carried to his guilty soul the terrible conviction that some appalling discovery had been _ made. The earl closed the door carefully, locked it, and placed the key in his pocket. A cold shudder passed over Ramsey’s frame, for the idea (Gx @) ANC } CS \