The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

THE OUTRAGED NOBLEMAN 41 amount of wanton and heartless injury which you have inflicted upon me.” | “‘ My lord, you will deal mercifully with me? ” exclaimed Ramsey. ‘‘ Am I not a worm already crushed so thoroughly beneath the iron heel of an avenging society that you can afford to spare, if not to pity me? ”’ ‘‘ Spare you I will, pity you I cannot,’’ rejoined the Earl of Desborough. ‘‘ And in sparing you I act not through any considerations of mercy, but in order to avert a public scandal and the world’s scorn from my house. The imposture you have practised upon me is venial, oh, yes, and your condition in that respect might indeed have commanded my pity; for, on that fatal night when you became an inmate of my dwelling, had: you thrown yourself on your knees before me, revealed to me the astounding secret that you were Philip Ramsey the convict, and demanded my forbearance and my succour, I should not have refused your prayer. But you have planted a poisoned dagger in the bosom of my wife; you have made her not only an adultress, but the paramour of a man whose neck has been circled by the halter of the gibbet. Oh, there is the accursed infamy of your conduct, there is the degradation, there is the damnable wrong which you have perpetrated.” And the nobleman, covering his face with his hands, broke forth into the bitterest lamentations. But Ramsey saw that he was safe, that no positive retri- bution was intended, and that the earl was prepared to strain every nerve and put every possible violence upon his own feelings rather than suffer it to be known to the world that the resuscitated criminal had been his own friend and his wife’s lover. Yes, all this the villain saw and comprehended; and so appalling had been his fears at first, that the joy occasioned by this assurance of impunity and sense of safety nearly overwhelmed him. And now that he was thus relieved from the most rending apprehensions, he experienced an ardent curiosity to learn how everything had been so suddenly discovered. Could the countess have repented, and betrayed the secret of her amour and intended flight? No, that was a conjecture incon- sistent with her character, her love, and her strength of mind. Besides, the idea would not account for the detection of his imposture as Gustavus Wakefield and his identity (C(O) Anyi } CS {