The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 160: what you’re looking at

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

THE PURSUER AND THE FUGITIVES 148 she resolved to take Lincolnshire on her way back to London. But in the meanwhile, what had Edmund and Adelaide been really doing? The reader has seen that immediately on his arrival at Saxondale Castle after his escape from the physician’s house in London, he had held a consultation with his wife; and, as Lady Saxondale had foreseen, Ade- laide counselled him to go into some strict retirement until he should come of age. While the horrors of incarceration were still fresh in Edmund’s mind, he needed no large amount of persuasion to induce him to adopt this course. Adelaide was not anxious to return to France; Edmund disliked travel- ling on the Continent, and therefore it was resolved to settle themselves in Wales. They travelled post, until they reached a certain town in Montgomeryshire, where they dismissed the chaise. At the same time they removed to another hotel in this same town, adopted another name than the fictitious one which they had borne on their arrival, and from this second hotel they proceeded by a public convey- ance to another town. Thus was it that they successfully broke off the clue which, until that point, Lady Saxondale had skilfully followed up. They settled in a small but comfortable house in the neighbourhood of that town at which they definitely halted; and for the first fortnight the change of scene, although it was the drear winter season, was sufficient to amuse Ed- mund’s mind, especially as his wife lavished upon him all those blandishing cajoleries which she was so well enabled to exercise, and which she used for the purpose of riveting the chains which her beauty had from the very first cast around him. But at the expiration of that fortnight Edmund was suddenly seized with a deep disgust for the monotony of the life he was leading. A capricious change of this kind was quite consistent with his shallow intellect and frivolous ideas. He could not bear living under the plain name of Mr. Jones, being no longer ‘‘ my-lorded,”’ having no servants to wait deferentially upon him, forced by the circumstances of the place to drink wines and partake of fare which were sorry enough for one accustomed to have his appetite pam- pered, no carriage nor horses, and the scenery not merely wearing the aspect of sameness, but likewise a bleak wintry dreariness, around him. Even the very local circulating library itself was deficient in attractions for one of his ca- CONnNIELDOOKS (C(O)