The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 271: what you’re looking at

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

244 REYNOLDS’ WORKS countess, when they alighted from the carriage which drew up in front of that beautiful country-seat. During the journey from London Ethel had not spoken one word relative to marriage; she had given Adolphus to understand that she would submit to his will in all things, — with the exception however, that she craved some little respite ere she again abandoned herself to him as his mistress. She represented that her husband had only died so recently and had perished so horribly, that so many frightful things had occurred, that her feelings had been so harrowed, that her health had suffered so greatly, and that she stood so much in need of repose and rest, that she felt convinced he would exact from her nothing more than the demeanour of friend- ship for the present. He, on his side, was only too glad to conciliate her in any way, and to allow her to follow her own inclinations, not to yield an assent; he nevertheless feigned to grant it with reluctance, and to be impatient for the time when all the guilty past should be resuscitated so far as their illicit amour was concerned. They arrived at Bloomfield, and took possession of the separate suite of chambers prepared for them; but they had their meals together, they passed the day together in- doors, or in rambling through the grounds, and thus a week went by. During this interval they received a letter from Isabella, whom the intelligence had in the meantime reached that the guilt of Makepeace was discovered and that the wretched man had himself committed suicide. Miss Vincent wrote the fullest details in respect to all that had occurred to herself, thus accounting for her sudden disappearance from the Gardiners’ farm. She did not omit to mention that she had accidentally encountered Christian Ashton at Verner House, nor how he had delivered her from prisonage in the secret chamber. She intimated that it was her purpose to accept the kind invitation of Sir Edgar Beverley and Miss Hall to remain at Verner House until their marriage, which was shortly to take place; and the whole tenor of her letter was kind and affectionate, for she felt that in some strange and unaccountable way she had done her aunt Ethel and her cousin Adolphus an immense injustice by believing that the crime of the old earl’s murder rested between them. As for Adolphus and Ethel themselves, they had too much to think of on their own account to pay any particular atten- CORNICLIOOKS (E(0)