The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

80 REYNOLDS’ WORKS make you acquainted with the elucidation of the mystery which had previously shrouded his own father’s fate, and at the same time he entertained the hope that as so terrible a retribution had overtaken the author of your wrongs, amidst the drifting snows of the Alpine regions, you would not refuse to give your hand in forgiveness, if not in friendship, to him- self as the living representative of the perished viscount. But you did refuse, and Alfred left you with sadness and sorrow in his heart. A few years passed away, during which he travelled in foreign countries, and after awhile he visited Spain. He took it into his head to perform a pedestrian tour across the Pyrenees and through the south of France. It was while thus engaged that he arrived a few months back in this neighbourhood. Observing the old chateau, his curi- osity dictated certain inquiries, and he learned to his aston- ishment that it was inhabited by a gentleman named Volney, and who had an only daughter. He therefore at once felt convinced that the present tenant of the chateau must be yourself. He wandered in the vicinage of the house. He caught a glimpse of you in the distance; he beheld me like- wise. Often and often,’ continued the blushing Clarine, “has he breathed the assurance in my ear that the first moment he saw me, he was smitten with a feeling which has since ripened into love. Accident rendered him my deliverer at the precipice of the ravine, as I have already told you, and from that instant he resolved to woo me as his future bride. But he dared not then reveal himself to you; he thought that if his love were reciprocated, and if he could win my heart, you would not stand in the way of your daughter’s happiness. He saw the necessity of devising some tale to account for his earnestly expressed desire that I should re- main silent in respect to the presence of such an individual in the neighbourhood, and therefore, when I pressed him to declare who he was, he adopted the first name which entered his head at the moment. The story of his political perils was a venial fabrication to suit his purposes for the time, to lull my suspicions, and to satisfy my mind. Such were the explanations which the Viscount Delorme gave me the night before last, when I met him in the chapel. You may con- ceive the feelings with which I listened to all that he then told me, but before I had time to learn what his intentions were, and how he meant to proceed toward yourself, dear ECORNICLIOOKS (E(0)