The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 219: what you’re looking at

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

202 THE COURT OF LONDON will be such as a sister may communicate to a brother. Tell me, then, Mr. Loftus, tell me,’’ she added, in a tone and with a look of the most mournful entreaty, indeed, of pathetic supplication, “‘ will you permit me to speak of my sorrows and of my wrongs in your hearing? ”’ © | ‘“ Assuredly, most assuredly, if it will in the slightest degree soothe your afflictions,” and as Jocelyn thus spoke, he surveyed with a boundless compassion that lady who thus plaintively addressed him. ‘And yet mine is but a common history, after all,” she exclaimed, starting from her seat in a state of considerable excitement. “It is the usual history of woman, — that. is to say, of the woman who is weak enough and foolish enough to torget her duty and place confidence in the pro- testations of deceitful man. Oh, Mr. Loftus, such has been my case. I have already told you that the name which I bear beneath this roof is a false one; I shall not now tell you what my real one is. On a future occasion perhaps I may do so, or accident may reveal it to you. But no matter. You see that | am a lady by education, and I trust in manners. Such indeed is my social rank, such also is my title in our own native land. I have been married, but am a widow. In an evil hour I listened to the tale of love which a nobleman, handsome, elegant, and fascinating, breathed in my ears. He was married, and I therefore knew that he could not love me honourably. But, oh, Mr. Loftus, I listened to the dictates of my heart in preference to those of reason. In the tide oi passion all prudence and propriety were swallowed up. Several strange and romantic circum- stances combined to precipitate my fall. But on these I need not dwell. Suffice it to say that I did fall, and that no sooner had I surrendered myself to him who vowed that he loved me, than he abruptly and precipitately quitted Eng- land. It is true that he sent me a note protesting his sorrow -and anguish at this departure, which, as he alleged, an imperious necessity enforced, but he therein declared that he knew not how long his absence might last, certainly for some weeks, perhaps for many months. Altogether, the style was so laconic, so strange, and so unsatisfactory, if not positively chilling, that I was filled with despair. I saw that I had been cheated, deluded, deceived, by a base profligate, that I had been treated as one of those uniortunate creatures COMMEMIOOK<Sa(eO lin