The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 190: what you’re looking at

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

A WOMAN’S LOVE 167 fully promise that whatever she may tell me shall not deter me from my purpose of serving your cause to the best of my endeavours.”’ Thus speaking, Lavinia hastened from the room, to pre- pare her toilet for the visit which she had to pay. Again had that withering, blighting suspicion flashed in unto her mind in spite of herself, for it struck her at the moment that she beheld something peculiar in her husband’s look; and then, too, that constant reiteration of the entreaty that she would not be shocked at anything she might hear con- cerning him naturally excited the suspicion which con- nected the duke in some way or another with the para- graph in the newspaper. But Lavinia was resolved to per- form her promise, and doing her best to dispel that sickening suspicion, she took her seat in the carriage which was to bear her to Indora’s villa. We will not dwell upon the various conflicting ideas which agitated the mind of the duchess as she was conveyed toward her destination. She shuddered as the carriage halted at the gate leading into the grounds where so foul a deed had been perpetrated on the previous night, and she inwardly murmured, “‘ Heaven forbid that the hostility which seems to exist between this lady and my husband can have any reference to an episode so terrible as that, or that it forms one of the causes of offence for which I am to humble myself even to the kneeling at her feet! ”’ The summons at the gate was answered by the faithful Mark, who, perceiving a splendid equipage with a ducal coronet upon the panels, hastened to the carriage window, to which a beautiful lady was beckoning him. ‘Have the kindness,” said Lavinia, “ to give my card and this note to the Lady Indora, and I will await any message you may bring back.” Christina Ashton had gone with her brother to pay a visit to Isabella Vincent, and Indora was alone in the draw- ing-room when at about the hour of noon the ducal equipage drove up to her gate. She wondered who the visitress could be, for she caught a glimpse of Lavinia as her Grace leaned forward at the carriage window to give the note and card to Mark. The reader may imagine the queen’s astonish- ment when her faithful majordomo entered with that card and that billet. Mark himself perceived the amazement CORNICLOOOKS (C(O)