Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 104: what you’re looking at

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

THE NOBLEMAN AND THE LAWYER 87 ically assured us that he possessed the means, not merely of proving Deveril’s case, but likewise of ruining her ladyship’s fair fame beyond the possibility of redemption, that Marlow and I scarcely know what to think. In short, we resolved to consult your lordship in this most delicate and unpleasant matter. Heaven forbid that I,’ Mr. Malton went on to say, ‘“ should lend myself to unworthy or unjust suspicions, but we do know, Lord Petersfield, that women sometimes take strange whims and caprices into their heads, and uf 1t should have happened that Lady Saxondale, in a moment of weak- ness, spoke or looked tenderly to this young man, who, as your lordship well knows, is of extraordinary beauty — In a word, my lord, we are all frail beings in this world.” Lord Petersfield, when looking inward to the depths of his own conscience, knew full well that Mr. Malton had just given utterance to a solemn truth; and the circumstances of his own position naturally led him to reflect that it was quite possibie, and even probable, that Lady Saxondale had laid herself open to grave aspersions. ‘There was he, Lord Petersfield, a man who had filled high diplomatic offices, whose honour and integrity frequently became the subject of compliment on the part of his brother peers in the Upper House, who was occasionally alluded to in certain newspapers a3 a man of unimpeachable rectitude, and who, in money affairs was looked upon by ali who knew him as an individual of scrupulous nicety,—there he was, occupying this proud position, and yet harbouring the secret consciousness that he was a vile plunderer of orphans, a base betrayer of the confidence which a generous friendship had reposed in him, the accomplice of men of infamous character in the doing of infamous deeds. Such he knew himself to be, while the world at large thought him so very different. Might not the case be somewhat similar with Lady Saxondale? Might not all the pride of her virtue be a mere outward assumption, a mask, a hypocrisy, a deceit? Besides, did not Lord Petersfield himselt know enough of the world — particularly of that aristocratic sphere in which he moved — to be well aware that female jrailties were often hidden beneath a con- summate dissimulation? And was there not within his own knowledge the special case of Lady Everton, — that case in all the ramifying results of which he had been so mixed up? EORVICLOOO cS (C0)