A Fair Fraud — page 241: what you’re looking at

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

230 A Fair Fraud down beside her on to the divan, ‘how glad I am to see somebody whom I can rely upon! Your uncle is still with those horrible men, I suppose? I have never had a word with him yet about this fearful business.’ ‘Lunch is over; they are all going away directly now, I think, Aunt Fanny. That fearful creature Grigson—the son—has had too much to drink, I think. I have just run away from him—’ ‘Oh, my dear child!’ broke out Mrs Drury, despairingly, ‘are you quite sure it is true about the Lanes? I can’t get at the truth till I see your uncle. Only I am told that something fearful was discovered about them . —that they are impostors altogether, and not - in the least what they represented themselves to be. Can you imagine anything so dreadful ? And your uncle and I, who were actually think- ing of that wretched girl for your cousin's wife! ’ ‘Dear aunt, Hester is not in the least altered; she is just the same—a brave, honour- able woman, worthy to be any man’s wife; she behaved so well at the inquest.’ ‘Don’t talk such wicked nonsense, Marion! Why, the servants, who seem to have heard all about the whole thing, tell me that this wretched man was a released convict, and that these creatures are his wife and daughter, and that their name isn’t Lane at all! Why, they EGORMGIOOKSHGEOln