The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 294: what you’re looking at

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

THE EARL’S LAST ACT OF REPARATION = 263 no dispute had occurred to ruffle their temper or produce a misunderstanding. Nota hasty word had fallen from either lip, not an angry look had been exchanged; nothing, in fact, had transpired of an irritable or unpleasant nature between them in their relative capacity of man and wife. Neither was the lady now tortured by unsatisfied desires and tantalizing passions, nor the nobleman shamed and goaded by a sense of humiliation and despair on that account. No; far differ- ent thoughts racked their brains and agitated their souls. The truth was that they experienced a secret and insuper- able loathing for each other, — a mingled disgust and horror against which they vainly strove, but which proved stronger than themselves; for the taint of an atmosphere poisoned by the sanguine exhalation of murder had destroyed all possible sympathy in their hearts. Deeply, fondly, madly, devotedly as the earl had loved his beautiful countess, he now regarded her as a murderess; and her presence, even as she walked in all the glory of her loveliness, produced upon him a shuddering sensation as if a loathsome serpent, with a charming woman’s head, were in reality concealed beneath that rustling silk and that snowy linen. It seemed to him as if there were pollution in her very touch, venom in her breath, the baleful fascination of a basilisk in her looks; and a cold tremor, like a presentiment of coming danger, was wont to creep slowly over him whenever she approached him. Ah! how different were his feelings now from what they were when he used to worship the very ground upon which she trod, when he was never wearied of gazing upon her as the goddess of his idolatry, and when her touch thrilled him with ecstasy and her beaming looks trans- fixed him with delight! But as an ungenial rain showers down myriads of poisonous insects upon the germinating plants and the nascent flowers of spring, so had murder sprinkled its crimson drops upon all the brightest feelings and purest affections that had ever flourished in the heart of that nobleman; and as a blight suddenly falls upon the loveliest blossoms and the greenest leaves, turning the deli- cate beauty of the former into cankered rottenness and the verdure of the latter into discoloured searness, so had crime shed its corroding, blasting mildew upon the holiest. sentiments and the finest emotions that ever harboured in the mortal breast. COMmICOOolKS. (©)