The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 383: what you’re looking at

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

B02 REYNOLDS’ WORKS consequently no means for me to discover the name of my guilty wife’s paramour? ” ‘““ None that I can point out,” replied Madame Angelique. ‘* But pray let me beseech you, Sir Frederick Latham, do let me beg and entreat that you will deal mercifully with her ladyship. Ah, sir, consider —” oy Silence, madam! ’? interrupted the merchant pele “It is not for you to offer these intercessions, it is for me to act as I think fit. We made a bargain at the outset, and I will keep it. You have given me all the information in your power, and you shall not suffer therefrom. For the present I enjoin you to maintain the strictest secrecy as to everything that has now passed between us. It is possible that I may have to see you again.” ‘“At any hour, Sir Frederick,” exclaimed Madame An- gelique, “‘ may you obtain access to me. And relative to that little sum —’” ‘“‘ Keep it, keep it,’’ responded the merchant, disdain- fully; and taking up his hat, he speedily issued forth from the luxurious apartment No one on perceiving Sir Frederick Latham issue forth from that villa, deliberately mount his horse, and methodi- cally take a shilling from his purse to give to the poor boy who held the animal, would have conjectured how much his feelings had been inwardly agitated or how tensely they were still wrung. He had affected in Madame Ange- lique’s presence that the supposed guilt of his wife and the presumed villainy of some paramour could not wield so great an influence over him as to wreck his happiness altogether, but he had not in that declaration expressed the truth. His was the sort of pride which was exactly the one to be most wounded by the exposure of his dishonour. He was too shrewd and coldly calculating not to be aware that if an explosion took place, all his friends and acquaint- ances would in their mingled scandal and wisdom observe “that it was just what he might have expected for marry- ing out of his own sphere.” And then, too, if he brought the affair before the tribunals and sued for a divorce, he would have to parade all Madame Angelique’s evidence, he would have to show that Anastatia had been incontinent before her marriage, and those same scandalous friends of his would, with knowing shakes of the head, whisper ECORNICLIIOOKS (E(0)