The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 368: what you’re looking at

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

THE FIRST ORDEAL | dod: Montgomery, the moment the door had closed behind the rector. ) “ Call it what your lordship will,” returned the Marchion- ess of Bellenden,.“‘ I think you must admit that the affair has assumed a somewhat serious aspect, and that if all this additional evidence were produced before a criminal tribunal, the Lord Chancellor would have to base his final judgment upon the result. Lady Holderness,” continued Laura, turning toward her cousin, and addressing her with a deeper solemnity, “it is not difficult to comprehend the part which you played in the tragedy of Malden Bridge. Lord Ray- mond loved you with an attachment that bordered upon adoration; and his blighted affections prompted him to seek a solitude congenial with his morbid state of mind. But his destruction was necessary to forward the aims of your- self and Earl Montgomery; you coveted the possessions which he claimed, and you were determined to constitute yourselves the heirs to that property, in the presumption that success would likewise attend upon the measures you devised to give a particular turn to the law proceedings. Your plans were settled accordingly, and when the bravos were hired and in readiness to act, it became no difficult matter to induce Lord Raymond to meet you, Lady Holder- ness, at an early hour in the morning, and in the immediate vicinage of the farm. Indeed, I can readily suppose that a few days previously you had written him a letter contain- ing the most earnest assurances that you repented of your past cruelty toward him, that you had at length learned to love him, and that you were ready and willing to become his bride. But, with that subtlety which never fails your ladyship, you devised some excuse for investing the whole proceeding with the utmost mystery; you perhaps told him in your letter that his mother, the dowager-countess, was averse to the match, and that the people at the farm had been secretly bribed to watch all his actions. Your readiness of invention was at no loss to account for the appearance of the mask upon your features; and a young, ardent, impassioned lover, entertaining the hope that he was about to repair to Bellenden village to make you his bride, was not very likely to be accessible to suspicions of evil.” “Enough of all this!” exclaimed EKugene Montgomery, conniclooolks (F©)