The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 165: what you’re looking at

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

142 REYNOLDS’ WORKS and a footman exclaimed, “‘ Sir James Walmer’s carriage is waiting for Mrs. Oxenden.”’ The Duke of Marchmont handed the lady forth with every appearance of a respectful courtesy; they exchanged rapid but significant glances, and the equipage drove away. The duke returned for a few minutes to the library, to tranquillize the feelings which were still agitating within him notwithstanding that serene affability of manner which he assumed while escorting the splendid but infamous Mrs. Oxenden forth to the carriage; but it was no easy task for the iniquitous nobleman to quench the flames of the hell that was raging with volcanic power in his breast. It appeared to him as if by means of a crime he had only escaped from the power of one woman to fall into that of another, and he had already seen enough of Mrs. Oxenden to be aware that she would be imperious and exacting, that it was with no lenient hand she would sway the sceptre of despotism over him, but that she would prove his mistress in more senses than one. Vainly did the duke endeavour to shut out from himself the realities of his position. He could not possibly blind his eyes to the conviction that every attempt which he made to dis- entangle himself from the web which his crimes had woven only tightened and drew it the more enmeshingly around him. He shuddered and he trembled as he thought of all these things, and oh, what would he have given to recall the past, when, as Lord Clandon, he had merely to contend against pecuniary difficulties, but had not as yet steeped his hands in crime. Exerting himself to the utmost to regain his self-possession, and to banish all these horrible, torturing, harrowing appre- hensions which were crowding in upon him, the duke issued from the library and ascended once more to the ballroom. There he endeavoured to mingle with an appearance of galety amidst the throng that was really gay, but pleasure sickened him, like dainties in the presence of one whose appetite is sated and palled. The very lustre of the rooms seemed to make his brain reel; he talked at random, he laughed with- out reason. His veins felt as if they were running with molten lead; he was glowing with a feverish excitement, intense, agonizing. Thus a hectic colour sat like patches of vivid paint upon the ghastliness of his countenance, but the guests were far, very far from suspecting how racked, ECORNICLIOOKS (E(0)