The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 98: what you’re looking at

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

THE GALLERY IN THE’ CHATEAU 79 You consented to grant your admirer an occasional interview within the walls of this chateau? ”’ ‘‘ Yes, in the chapel,”’ responded Clarine. ‘‘ I furnished him with the key of the door at the bottom of the staircase at the extremity of the passage, and on four or five occasions did I meet him for a few minutes in the chapel. Rest as- sured that I should not have for an instant granted these stolen interviews within the sanctity of your dwelling — nor at such an hour, after the household had retired to rest, no, not even in compliance with his earnest pleadings should I have granted these interviews — were it not that I was deeply, deeply anxious to learn the progress of those inter- cessions which his friends, as I believed at the time, were making on his behalf in Paris. I now come to a very mem- orable moment of my existence. It was the evening before last that I again met Claude Masson — as I still believed his name to be — in the chapel. He told me that he began to fear our interviews could no longer be snatched thus stealth- ily, for that he had seen you, dear Zoe, crossing the passage on the previous night as he was hastening toward the stair- case at the extremity. He then asked me if I were prepared for a revelation which he was resolved to make, and which could no longer be withheld. I was frightened; I besought him to be candid with me at once. He then said that he must tell me a narrative of the past, of which, as he had dis- covered, I was hitherto completely ignorant. Without im- mediately revealing himself, he told me how a certain Vis- count Delorme had proved the author of your wretchedness, my dear father — ”’ ‘Yes, yes,” interrupted Monsieur Volney, with an an- guished look; “I can understand full well all that he told you.” “And then he concluded,” added Clarine, herself deeply afflicted at being compelled to make allusions which thus planted fresh daggers in her parent’s heart, — ‘‘ and then he concluded by revealing himself to me as Alfred Delorme.”’ There was a brief pause, during which Monsieur Volney guarded a profound silence, and Clarine then resumed her narrative in the following manner: “ Alfred explained to me all the motives of his recent con- duct. He said that some five or six years ago he called privately upon you, my dear father, at Fontainebleau, to COnnicloookKs (CO)