The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 292: what you’re looking at

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

272 REYNOLDS’ WORKS passed as your mother, and indeed from whose bosom you were nourished in your infancy. You are aware likewise that she was of the Catholic persuasion and that she was attended by a priest in her last hours, when a mortal illness overtook her beneath this roof. To that priest she confessed everything, but he dared not give her absolution unless she revealed to me the fraud which had been perpetrated—”’ “Go on,” groaned Adolphus, in a half-stifling voice. “The revelation was made accordingly,” continued the earl, ‘‘ but I swore to the countess — your mother of adop- tion — that I would continue to treat you as my son and never expose the fraud to the world. She died with a con- science much relieved; she died blessing me,” added the old nobleman, now displaying deeper feeling than Adolphus had ever before seen him exhibit. “ And why that fraud?” asked the young man, still profoundly agitated. ‘“‘T have already told you that I was abruptly called away from England when my child was three days old. A month afterward that child died. There were circumstances at- tending its birth, — circumstances so painful to its mother, as to preclude the idea that she could ever again hope to become a parent. She dreaded lest the severance of the tie which that child’s existence constituted betwixt herself and me should alienate my heart from her, and make me look upon her even with aversion as a wife who could give no heir to the haughty name of Lascelles. She knew, moreover, that if anything happened to me, the estates would devolve upon my sister, — Isabella’s mother, — and that she herself (my wife, I mean) would have to retire upon a small jointure, almost excluded as it were from that family of which it was her pride to be one of the heads. All these reasons induced her to practise the cheat which I have described. Oppor- tunities were favourable; I was absent, with a certainty of remaining away for yet some months. She had a surgeon and a nurse accessible to bribery, female dependents who were devoted to her, and I had left her with the illimitable command of funds. You understand the rest,—I need say no more.” “Yes, there is something more for you to tell me,” answered Adolphus; then, after a pause, he said, and the words appeared to half choke him, “‘ Whose son am I? ” EORNICElooo