The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

120 - REYNOLD’S WORKS once more I conjure you to listen to me attentively. Hither you mean that I am to prove faithless to the vow I have plighted to your mistress, and receive yourself as a wife, or else you intend me to remain faithful to that plight in some sense, but to abandon myself to the temptation of an illicit love with you. In either case you are acting most im- properly; you are outraging the loftiness of that very female dignity of which you ere now spoke; you are behaving un- oratefully to the mistress who has ever been so kind and in- dulgent toward you. Do you notcomprehend me, Sagoonah? Will you not promise that you will stifle this infatuation which you have been cherishing, and that nevermore hence- forth will you address me in such terms? You see that I do not reproach you; I speak kindly to you, and surely, surely your better feelings must be touched, your good sense must make you aware of the truth of all I am telling you.” ‘If you possess an enchanter’s power,’’ responded Sag- oonah, ‘‘ give me back my freedom of the heart, release me from the spells with which you have enthralled me, pluck out from my brain all the memories of the past, tear away from my soul that image which has become, as it were, interwoven with my own existence. If you can do all this, Mr. Redcliffe, then indeed may we separate at once, and I may faithfully promise never more to address you in the lan- guage which I have been holding. Oh, think not that I am unaware of the desperate, the well-nigh hopeless condition in which I am placed with regard to you. But my feelings are stronger than myself, and I have no more power to crush this love of mine than you have to bid it be crushed. Is it not therefore vain to talk to me of duties and proprieties? Is it not useless to remind me of the kind indulgence of a good mistress — ay, and all the more so,” she added, in a voice which suddenly became low, and which had a deeper meaning in it than Mr. Redcliffe could fathom at the time, — “ ay, and all the more so inasmuch as I feel that I have sinned against her too deeply to leave room for repentance.” ‘ But, Sagoonah,”’ said Mr. Redcliffe, now adopting a sterner look and a more peremptory tone, “it is absolutely necessary that you should exercise a becoming control over your feelings. I do not love you, I cannot love you. What- soever influence you may hope, think, or seek to exercise over me would only be a tyranny against which I should CORNICELOOO CS (E(0)