The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 354: what you’re looking at

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

UNCONSCIOUS REVELATIONS 323° member awhile ago, one night when I was expecting him. to call at the villa, that I spoke to you, Sagoonah, on the subject of love. I asked if you had ever loved, and I fancied that you were happy in your supposed ignorance of love’s pangs. But at that very time you loved him — oh, you. loved him!—and how you dissembled! Well, well do. I know, Sagoonah, that the human heart has no power. over its volition, and it cannot shield itself against the impressions or the images which by destiny’s decree are to affix themselves upon it. Nevertheless, Sagoonah, there are duties which in such a case are to be performed, and those duties were not performed by you. No, for you should have told me the truth, and I should not have blamed you —I should have pitied you. Yes, you should have told me the truth, and you should not have accompanied me from India. But you yielded to your own infatuation, you were selfish, you were egotistical; and in thee I have been cherishing a reptile who sought to sting me, instead of a faithful dependent to soothe and comfort me. I gave you my confidence, Sagoonah, I told you all my love for him. At one time I[ explained my hopes, at another my fears; seldom did I conceal from you my intentions, and all the while you were a traitress and a hypocrite.”’ Indora heaved a profound sigh as she reached this point in her musings, and so deeply were her feelings touched that tears trickled down her cheeks. Her heart was generous, her soul magnanimous, and as she had embraced the Christian faith, so did she possess the purest Christian sympathies. Thus, even while musingly addressing her reproaches to the unconscious Sagoonah, she felt inclined to pity her as the victim of an infatuated and hopeless love. “Ought I really to blame you thus?”’ continued the queen, still pensively apostrophizing the sleeping ayah, “ or ought I not rather to look for as much extenuation on your behalf as circumstances admit? For, oh, I myself know what the power of love is, what its impulses are, and how selfish it at times renders its votaries. My own life affords an illustra- tion, and it is the only deed on which I have to look back with sorrow. Yes, for it was I who kept him so long a prisoner in that far-off kingdom of Inderabad; and it was cruel, it was selfish, it was unjust, it was barbarous, on my part. If I therefore have to retrospect with compunction CoOnnicloookKkSs (CO)