Ellen Percy; or, The Memoirs of an Actress — page 316: what you’re looking at

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

- tion of a solemn ELLEN PERCY; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF AN ACTRESS, look of the most earnest eutreaty,—“ I know that it is dishonourable on my part—a flagrant viola- ”» “Then leave me at once, my lord!” I ejacu- lated. “Not another syllable!—and dare not to follow me another step!” “Ellen, IT am half mad!” exclaimed the Mar- quis of Tynedale. ‘I cannot live without you— by heaven I cannot!” ** How dare you, my lord, address me in these terms?” I demanded, my whole frame now qui- vering with anger and offended modesty. “ By what right, do you speak to me in these familiar terms—calling me by my Christian name ,: * Ah, by what right?” he said, with a look and | manner so strange that I could not help being struck by both. me thus haughtily—thus disdainfully ?” “What, my lord!” I cried; “would you ven- ture to assert any right upon such a point?” “The right, Ellen, which circumstances have -_.—— May I not ask why you repel | 303 ‘upon him with a bewilderment which at those last words that he uttered suddenly turned into a silent storm of indignation—a storm that was ex- pressed in my looks and which seemed in readi- ness to burst forth. I had been insensibly led on to tarry in conversation with him down to this crisis ; and now I was still more completely trans- fixed to the spot by the strange, the incompre- hensible language he had just been holding to me, “TI do not understand you, my lord,’ I said; “and it would take but little to make me con- ceive that you are even more mad than wicked. I now insist upon your leaving me!—I command it!—-and I declare to you,” I added vehemently, “that if you persist in following my footsteps, IL will invoke the protection of that police-ofticer or of those gentlemen yonder !” It would be impossible to describe the look of deep pathetic sadness which the Marquis of Tyne- dale now bent upon me. All the dignity of his given me,” he responded: and he spoke in a voice | own aristocracy seemed to dissolve into the so mild in accents—so plaintively reproachful— | mournfulness of that look, with its deep yet mild and with a look so deprecating, that I really | and gentle reproachfulness, as if it were the air of began to grow bewildered: for to judge by his | a man who was doomed to suffer some immense conduct and demeanour, it would actually seem as | wrong, and yet was resigned to endure it patiently if he felt himself to be in some sense an injured | and uncomplainingly for the sake of her who in- man by the denial on my part of his asserted right ‘flicted it. I was again struck by his whole appears to question me. ance: there was in my mind a vague idea of some “JT cannot understand you, my lord,’ I said, | mystery which I could not understand—some with firmness and dignity: but then all in an in- | misconception either on his part or on mine: bat stant a thousand painful ideas swept through my | I would not bid him tarry that I might demand mind. Could he possibly think that I was only playing & part P—did he conceive that I was an actress off the stage as well as upon itP—had he become im- pressed with the belief that in a meretricious or explanations, when he began to turn away from me with a last look of dismal yet gentle depre- cation. I hastened onward. “What could it possibly all mean? He had made allusions to things which I could not understand: he had said, for instance, that I knew he had made certain vows:—but how coquettish humour at the moment, I had pur- posely suffered him to catch a glimpse of my bosom the other night at the theatre?—that I | could I have known it? He had spoken of “the was therefore laying myself open to be addressed | enjoyment of happiness:” and it was this phrase by him—and that I had returned-his letter and | which had turned my bewilderment into indigna- his cheque merely because I estimated my charms | tion. My thoughts were full of painful confusion, at a higher price and was determined to elicit ; wonder, and amaze, I now blamed myself for not more substantial terms ere I surrendered? In| having demanded an explanation: but the whole this sense ran the questions which with the swift- | details of the interview had taken a course so dif- ness of a hurricane I asked myself; and at the | ferent from what I had expected at the outset, bare idea that I might possibly be so terribly mis- | that I had been enabled to act only according to understood—so fearfully misjudged—the burning | the impulses of the moment, and not according to blushes rose to my cheeks. “You do not understand me, Ellen?” he said, still with all the gentleness of remonstrating in- | quiry, of deprecation, and reproach, as if he felt himself to be an injured man—or at least as if he thought he was not being treated handsomely or becomingly. “Ah! I am not astonished to hear you speak thus! But yet I may be permitted to} deplore—to grieve even—though I might have | sworn never again to entreat—never even to re- cognise you—but to pass you by unnoticed 1 “If these vows, my lord, you made within yourself,’ I interrupted him, “ they were well and wisely taken! But wherefore do you not adhere to them P” “You know that I made those vows, Ellen,” he replied: “but, Ah! to keep them is another thing ! anything at the time—yes, anything in order to enjoy that happiness He stopped short; for he saw that [I was gazing I would have pledged myself to perform | fathom the present mystery with a degree of pene- ‘the plan which in the first instance I had resolved “upon, eee CHAPTER LIIli. MORE MYSTERIES. TEN minutes had elapsed from the moment when | the Marquis of Tynedale had separated from me in so singular a manner; and still in a maze of painful confusion, wonder, and perplexity, I was drawing near ‘towards Hyde Park Corner,—when whom should I meet but Melissa Harrison? Ah! this was fortunate, I thought: for as she was in the secret of the Marquis of Tynedale’ s overtures towards me, and of the manner in which I had rejected them, she might possibly be enabled to tration in which [ found myself so utterly de- ficient. (COUN ebook Com