The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 90: what you’re looking at

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

BERTRAM AND ELIZA 71 countenance expressing ineffable agony. ‘‘ You would invoke curses upon the head of my perished father.”’ ‘‘My God, I comprehend it all!’? murmured Bertram, and he placed his hand upon his throbbing brows, as if thereby to steady the brain that rocked and reeled within. ‘“ Yes,’’ continued Eliza, now hurried away by the strong impulse which opportunity as well as her own feelings gave her to justify herself, ‘‘I was deceived, Bertram, cruelly deceived. God, who alone can read the human heart, knows how true I was to you, and if an angel-witness were to appear before you now, that holy being could tell how I cherished your image while you were absent, how I cherished it even after the terrible report that you had gone down to a grave in the deep waters. Bertram, it was not until I became another’s that I learned the tremendous truth that you were alive.”’ “Eliza, Eliza! this is agony for me to hear,’’ murmured the wretched Bertram, his countenance filled with despair. “TIT wrote to your father twice — ”’ “IT know it,”’ she interrupted him softly, but, oh, with what a world of ineffable feeling in her looks: ‘‘ I know it. My father deceived me — Butspare him, spare his memory. May God have forgiven him! ”’ ‘“ Eliza,’ continued Bertram, “‘I believe you. There is truth in your looks, truth in your words. I always believed you truthful, until the fatal day when, on arriving in England to hasten and claim you as my bride, I read in a newspaper the report of your marriage. Just Heaven! what searing, blinding, sight-blasting words for me. Do you know, Eliza, that for hours I was like one gone mad, — that I strove to lay violent hands upon myself, and that the persons of the hotel prevented me? ”’ ‘“‘ Bertram, Bertram, tell me not all this,’’ moaned Eliza, sobbing bitterly. ‘ It is more than I can endure. Since the first instant that the intelligence of your death reached me, my life has been one long agony, one continuous throe of indescribable despair. The rack may torture for hours or for days, and the miseries of the victim will end in death, but my rack, Bertram, has now lasted for more than two long years, and it will last, Bertram, until I go down into the cold grave where alone this heart of mine can be at peace.” “ Eliza, it is now for me to implore you to be calm, to ; GoM (Q) IDOOkKs (E(0)