The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 167: what you’re looking at

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

146 REYNOLDS’ WORKS oh, tell:me, what. means the horrible mystery of ‘all these proceedings? No sooner is my husband recovering from his dangerous illness, scarcely is he convalescent, when two emissaries from your Majesty present themselves at the house and demand an interview with him. They insisted upon seeing him alone, but I would not leave him; I clung to him; nothing could induce me to tear myself away from him at a moment when presentiments of danger had irresistibly seized upon my brain. Then they whispered some words in his ear; those words.I could not catch, nor would he tell me what they were. But their power was talismanic, and their effects upon him were awful. Crushed and overwhelmed as if the call of doom had smitten his ear, he murmured forth his readiness to obey the summons which your Majesty had sent him through those emissaries. .Then was it that I learned for the first time that you were possessed of queenly rank, and I knew that if ever the diadem of mercy sat grace- fully on the brow of any throned lady, it must be upon yours, and I resolved to accompany my husband. It was as a cap- tive in the power of your emissaries that he was brought hither; it was as a criminal that I beheld him ere now sep- arated from me. And here, in his own mansion, where none but he or I should command, do we seem to be aliens and strangers. Our very steward dictates to us; the domestics, assembled in the hall, look on in gloomy silence as we pass. Oh, madam, my mind. is filled with horrible alarms! For Heaven’s sake tell me, what does it all mean?” “ Tt 1s impossible that I can give your BIR any ex- planations now,”’ responded Indora. ‘“ Oh, did you not tell me on the former occasion when 7 we met,’’ exclaimed the Duchess of Marchmont, “‘ did you not tell-me that for my sake would you forgive all his offences toward yourself? Did you not bid me return to my husband and assure him emphatically that it was on my account your pardon was accorded? ”’ _ “€ All this is true, lady,’’ answered Indes still with the most compassionating tone and look, ‘‘ but do you not re- member that at the time I gave your Grace to understand there was a reservation on behalf of another, and that though I pardoned your husband for his misdeeds toward myself, I had not the power to acquit him of whatsoever offences he had been guilty of toward that other?” | , EOMmicdooks (E()