The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 262: what you’re looking at

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

THE SELF-SACRIFICE DEMANDED 235 generous of you not to proclaim without an instant’s delay that everything which you can do shall be done.”’ “Ethel, Ethel!”’ gasped the young earl, and he could say no more, but sinking on a seat, he gazed in consternation upon her. “Ts it possible, Adolphus, that you do not understand what I mean?’ she asked. ‘“ Will you thus force me to explain in the most measured terms of language? Well, then, be it so. The world,’ continued Ethel, impressively, ‘““ believes that you are the son of the late Earl of Lascelles, and therefore that I am your stepmother. With such a belief our unfortunate love, when proclaimed, will be re- garded as infamy itself; for what, Adolphus, could be more horrible than an amour of so incestuous a dye? Society will drive me with execration from its midst, yourself with scorn and loathing. Is all this to be, when one word spoken from your lips will in a moment reduce our tremendous crime, as it now appears, to a comparatively venial feeling? And that word must be spoken by your lips, Adolphus; it is the sacrifice which you must make for both our sakes. Oh, even then there will yet remain degradation enough for me — but spare me, Adolphus, that branding shame, that crowning infamy! ”’ ‘“‘ Hthel,’’ responded the young earl, in the same deep, hollow voice as before, ‘‘ you know not what you ask. You bid me divest myself of my patrician rank, to pluck the coronet from my brow, to resign the broad domains which call me master, to sink into an obscurity which will be total, like a star that goes out, and, what is perhaps worse, to find myself plunged into comparative poverty.”’ ‘““T have a rich jointure, Adolphus,”’ answered the countess, with difficulty repressing a look of scorn and contempt at the objections which he proffered. ‘ Take it all —I abandon it to you, every shilling; I myself care not for poverty. But as for your title, you must resign it.”’ “Never!” ejaculated the young earl, goaded almost to madness by the thought. “ And yet there was a time, Adolphus,” rejoined Ethel, re- proachfully, “‘ when I believed that for my sake you would have abandoned rank, position, everything.” “ Oh, but the madness of that love has passed, Ethel, — and not only with myself,” cried the young earl, “ but also EOMINGIOOKS (CO)