The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 171: what you’re looking at

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

150 REYNOLDS’ WORKS mont’s conscience was stained with countless crimes, it will require but little effort of the imagination for the reader to conceive the effect produced upon him. Having only within the last few days risen from a bed of sickness, still suffering physically, and incessantly tortured by all the wild appre- hensions which had originally thrown him on the couch of fever, the Duke of Marchmont was but the shadow of his former self. So emaciated was his form that his garments appeared to hang upon him as if they had been made for another-person; his countenance was thin, wan, and ghastly; his eyes were sunken in their sockets, the bluish tint of which enhanced the horrible aspect of their cavernous depths. Were it not that he was prepared for something dreadful, he could not possibly have sustained the shock which the ap- pearance of the tribunal produced upon him as the bandage fell from his eyes. He staggered, and would have fallen were it not that his suards sustained him. He beheld Queen Indora seated upon that throne, and it seemed to his appalled fancy that hers was now a terrible beauty, and that there was the aspect of the avenging Nemesis in her majestic looks. He glanced to her right, he glanced to her left; who were those veiled and masked figures? His gaze wandered elsewhere; what meant that light streaming forth from the inner room? What mys- teries or. what horrors were concealed by that open door? He glanced upon his guards; they were now masked, although he had previously seen their countenances when they had ‘appeared at his mansion in Belgrave Square to summon him in Queen Indora’s name to Oaklands. Oh, well indeed had all her Majesty’s arrangements been combined to produce the most awful effects on the Duke of Marchmont’s guilty soul! It often happens that when a man who has for some time foreseen the wreck of fame, fortune, rank, and safety, is sud- denly brought face to face with the tremendous convulsion itself, the courage of utter desperation seizes upon him. And thus. was it with the Duke of Marchmont. All in a moment the most powerful revulsion of feelings took place within him, and he clutched at the wild hope that he might yet save himself by presenting a bold front to this tribunal in the presence of which he stood. And then, too, perhaps the thought struck him that the tribunal was only so Gomiuichdoc CS (E(©)