The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

THE LAWYER’S OFFICE Od ney, and the bills which are coming due, may all be torn up before your face and tossed into the fire; the lost fortune of your daughter may be replaced, and ruin may be averted from yourself — if —if,’’ repeated Coleman, with a solemnly significant look, — “ if you — ”’ “Oh, for Heaven’s sake speak! ”’ cried Armytage, now al- most wild with mingled joy and suspense. ‘ To avert the blow from Zoe — ”’ He stopped suddenly short, and, overpowered by his feel- ings, burst into tears. “ Yes,’ continued Mr. Coleman, after a brief pause, during which those tears flowed freely from the eyes of Armytage, ““you can save yourself. But I tell you that the sacrifice you may have to make is immense, inasmuch as it involves the complete unbosoming of every secret which your heart has harboured.”’ “ What mean you? ”’ gasped he to whom these words were addressed. ““I am speaking intelligently,’ proceeded the lawyer. ‘Look down into the depths of your soul, and see if there be nothing there which you have hitherto locked up in the profoundest cavern where the most stupendous secrets could possibly be retained. Choose whether you will have that mighty secret dragged into the light of day, or whether you will dare a debtor’s prison? ”’ “I do not understand you,” said Armytage, and yet it was with a look and in a tone which conveyed the impression that he was, as it were, appalled by the manner in which he had just been addressed. “I will now deal more frankly with you,” proceeded Mr. Coleman. ‘ The whole tenor of my connection with you from the very first instant that I sought you out has had one object in view, and only one object. I knew that you were in difficulties, and therefore it was not in a blind con- fidence that I advanced you my client’s money. No, it was to get you into our power; and for this reason did I likewise find out where you had bills circulating, for this reason was money given for those bills, that they might get into our hands and paralyze you all the more completely when the day of reckoning should come. The web has enmeshed you, | it has closed in around you, and there is but one means for your emancipation. Everything depends now upon your- GomiilGaooks (S©@)