The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 387: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XXXVIII THE LAST MEETING Ir was about noon on the following day, when the Princess Amelia stole forth from her apartment in Windsor Castle and hastened into the park. Changed, oh, sadly changed, was the appearance of the royal lady since we first introduced her, in all the glow and freshness of her voluptuous beauty, to our readers; and this alteration had occurred within the space of a few short days. But then what harrowing thoughts, what terrible reflec- tions, what remorseful memories had been doing the work of desolation, and what ravenous vultures had been preying upon a heart that was formed to love with such fervid enthusiasm and to palpitate with the gush of such warm impassioned feelings. How indescribable, how matchless was the woe which had succeeded the dream of bliss wherein the senses of that princess had been lately steeped! It was not the mere loss of the object of an illimitable love, but it was the idea, ever haunting and ever goading her, that this love which she had known was accursed, — this fondness to which she had yielded was an incest. The heart had created a worship which nature now denounced as a blasphemy; the imagina- tion had pictured a heaven where in reality there was a yawning hell. Henceforth what joy could existence promise for the royal Amelia? How could she even endure to live? Though gems might glitter upon her brow, her heart would be consuming to ashes; all the hght and glory of her rank would only render the darkness of her soul the more appalling. For not only was there her own secret, — the stupendous secret of her incestuous love, — but there was likewise her father’s secret 306 (E(0) EORNIELNCYOLKS