Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 211: what you’re looking at

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

194 REYNOLDS’ WORKS this reparation? Will you make this atonement? Or will you dare the vengeance of the law? ”’ “But who are you?” again inquired the miserable old man, looking aghast, a most abject picture of physical decay and moral ignominy. ‘““T am one possessing sufficient knowledge of the past to drag all your crimes to light, if you force me to that alter- native. But I do not seek it; I have already given you this assurance. If with that palsied hand of yours,” continued the marquis, solemnly, ‘‘ you persist in clutching the coronet which you plucked from the brow of its rightful possessor, you will speedily exchange this well-furnished apartment for a felon’s dungeon. Listen to me — do not interrupt me; those passionate ejaculations of yours will produce no éffect, unless indeed it be an effect detrimental to yourself. You spoke ere now of the death of Adolphus, his burial; I tell you that it was 4 montrous deceit, — a detestable imposture. For Adolphus is living, you know that he has escaped from this vile den of yours, and I must tell you that he has found friends.”’ ‘“T understand it all,’’ exclaimed Everton, regaining a portion of his lost effrontery. ‘‘ That crazy young man —a rampant lunatic — has by some means or another got the idea into his head that he is the Adolphus of whom you speak. No doubt there are base and mercenary pettifoggers to be found ready and eager to take up his cause. Perhaps you yourself are the attorney who may have got it in hand? Come, sir, we begin to understand each other; name your price, — I don’t want law, —I am too ill to be troubled with litigation — ”’ “And this illness of yours,’ interrupted the Marquis of Eagledean, indignantly, ‘‘ has doubtless been brought on by the goading tortures of your evil conscience. No, sir, I am not an attorney, nor have I the selfish purposes of a detestable rapacity to serve. Besides, have you forgotten the allusion I have made to Lord Petersfield and Sir John Marston? And can you not understand that your iniquity in respect to your nephew Adolphus is not the only villainy of yours with which I am acquainted? Was it not by your consent and connivance that those two men — as hase as yourself — appropriated the immense fortune — ”’ ‘“ But I was no party to that trust deed,” ejaculated the Gomichbooks (E(o) mi