Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

96 REYNOLDS’ WORKS as Soon as we were married. These things are always done by young men, and I don’t suppose you want to make me an exception to the general rule.”’ “Tt is not to argue the point, Lord Saxondale,”’ said Mr. Gunthorpe, with a severe look, “‘ that her ladyship was addressing you, but to make a certain announcement which it is needful you should hear.” “Oh, I can guess what’s coming!” cried Edmund, snap- pishly, “ but 1 am not to be put off so easy, I can tell you. What the deuce, Mr. Gunthorpe, have you got to do with the business? Why are you poking your nose in the affair? And by the bye, if you have been telling any tales about me, I can tell one about you. That day you dined with Lord Harold in Jermyn Street, didn’t you get most blazing drunk?’ “No, sir,” responded Mr. Gunthorpe, sternly; “‘ I affected to be overcome with liquor, in order that I might see the extent to which Lord Harold and yourself would go in your endeavours to enmesh me in your snares. If Lord Harold showed you the next day the letter which I sent him, you must have seen full well that not for a single moment was I made your dupe. I suffered myself to be robbed of a few thousand pounds for a certain reason of my own — _ But of that no matter. You would now do well to attend to what Lady Macdonald may have to say.” “ Well, then, what is 1t?’’ demanded Edmund, his lips trembling with rage, as he bent his spiteful looks upon Florina’s aunt, while the young damsel herself sat by Mr. Gunthorpe’s side, grave and serious, and with her eyes bent down. | “T do not wish, Lord Saxondale,”’ resumed Lady Mac- donald, ‘‘ to touch more than is necessary upon that lament- able occurrence, which, if you possess any heart at all, must — have affected you. But it is necessary for me to state that I consider your conduct in maintaining such a connection while formally engaged to my niece to have been most dis- graceful. Therefore, you cannot be surprised when I request that you will consider her engagement with yourself to exist no longer.”’ ‘““ Indeed, I shall consider nothing of the sort,” he ex- claimed, flippantly. ‘‘ I am well aware that Flo loves me, — I am sure of it, —though she may be offended at the moment.” Gomicbooks: co m