The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 232: what you’re looking at

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

THE OATHS 205 And if such be the impression under which, assisted by your imagination, you are now standing here, then take this book, kiss it, and swear that you are innocent of your late hus- band’s death.”’ Unhesitatingly did the Countess of Lascelles receive the book in one hand, while she placed the other upon the pillow of the bed; and when Adolphus had dictated to her an oath couched in terms alike the most solemn and the most terrible, when, too, in a firm voice she had repeated word for word all that he thus dictated, she kissed the sacred volume, adding, in the same tone of solemn resolute confidence, ‘‘ I swear! ”’ When this was done, Adolphus gazed upon her for a few moments with the most searching scrutiny, — a scrutiny from which she neither quailed nor shrank, but which she endured.with the air of one who was indeed innocent of a foul crime and who had no cause to dread the fathoming of the inmost recesses of her heart, — at least not upon that score. The earl received back the book from her hand, and made a sign for her to commence the administration of the oath unto himself. She repeated precisely the same formula as that which he had dictated to her; and he, with an equal air of sincerity, with the same outward appearance of confidence, with the same absence of any trace of a guilty conscience’s internal whispering, pressed the book to his lips and said, ‘““T swear! ”’ Then the Countess of Lascelles gazed upon him with as deep and earnest a scrutiny as that which she herself had ere now undergone, and he bore it as unflinchingly and as firmly. “Yes, Adolphus,” she said, ‘‘ you are innocent.”’ “And you, Ethel,” he replied, ‘‘ you also are innocent.” But did their former love spring up again in their hearts, now that the hideous nightmare of suspicion was lifted also from the soul of each? Did they fly into each other’s arms? Were their hands instantaneously clasped? Not so. It is true that they now beheld each other in a different light, but that love of theirs, once so strong, so impassioned, and so tender, had received a shock from which recovery was impossible. A blight had fallen upon it, as upon the most beauteous flower which never again must raise its drooping head from beneath that withering influence. And they gazed upon each other with looks of embarrassment and EOMINIGIOOKS (CO)