The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 123: what you’re looking at

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

— 106 THE COURT OF LONDON he could not account for, he said, ‘‘ Make yourself at home, and don’t spare the wine.’’. ‘Mrs. Sackville,” exclaimed the Marquis of Leveson, “we are ready to hear you.” ‘It will be sufficient for me, my lord,’’ answered Venetia, “simply but emphatically to deny the calumnious aspersion thrown upon me by Colonel Malpas. My husband is the proper person to conduct my defence.”’ “First of all, then,” said Horace Sackville, {I shall request Captain Tash to state whatever he knows of the interview between Colonel Malpas and my wife at Lady Wenlock’s.”’ “With much pleasure,’”? observed the gallant officer, filling a tumbler with port wine and draining it at a draught, —for he contemptuously eschewed the paltry size of an ordinary wine-glass. ‘“‘ On the particular Wednesday night alluded to by Colonel Malpas, — for I must tell you that I have been listening outside the door to everything he has been saying, — myself and my man Robin, who is a faithful creature, were concealed amongst the bushes in Lady Wen- lock’s grounds. Why we were there, doesn’t matter,” he continued, darting a sly look at Lord Curzon and Sir Douglas Huntingdon; ‘it 1s enough to state that we were there. It is true that Mrs. Arbuthnot and her daughter walked on in advance; but it is also true that Mrs. Sackville, as the then Miss T'relawney now is, treated the colonel with mingled scorn, contempt, raillery, and defiance, according to the variations of language which he adopted toward her. He hinted at some conspiracy that was set on foot against her, and declared that his own most intimate friends were engaged in it. He informed her that she was the object of a wager on the part of some base and infamous voluptuaries. Those were his very words. He heard a rustling in the evergreens, and was startled. Ah! he little thought that Rolando Tash,” added the captain, with a look of terrible ferocity upon the pale, trembling, and speechless colonel, ‘“was concealed in the evergreens, like — like — an owl in an ivy-bush.’’ Here the gallant officer paused, and tossed off another tumbler of port wine. ‘Well, my lord,” he continued, addressing himself to the marquis, ‘‘ the colonel proceeded to threaten Miss T're- GOMmiGcDooks (E(0)