Ellen Percy; or, The Memoirs of an Actress — page 321: what you’re looking at

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

— 308 ELLEN PERCY; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF AN ACTRESS, ———— ~ “O Ellen!” she cried, “if it were not for the you possibly be prepared to hear that when the recollection of all your goodness towards me when Marquis of Tynedale clasped me in his arms, it I so bitterly needed a friend, I sould not be thus was under circumstances planned with so devilish humbled and cast down! No, no!—to any one | an ingenuity that he believed he was possessing else I should brave it out—I should assume the you?” air of a hardened wanton, as I have become!” _ <A shriek rose up to the very brim of my lips: “Unhappy Melissa!” I exclaimed; “what ter- but it was suddenly held back by the sense of rible words are these P” consternation and dismay which instantaneously “Oh! I am perhaps more wicked than you can | succeeded the first thrilling effects produced by imagine!” she cried: “and yet But no mat- | this astounding, this terrific revelation. A faint- ter!” she interrupted herself, with a strange wild ness came over me—all the sense of life seemed bitterness of look and tone: “I am now utterly to be departing out of my frame—when Melissa, lost—and it is useless to deplore the degree of springing up from her kneeling posture, placed a degradation to which I have come down! But still tumbler of water to my lips. I imbibed a portion I am not so bad as to be without remorse or of the fluid, and was quickly restored. She stood regret for the evil I have done to you,—you who | before me, pale, trembling, and quivering, the very have ever proved yourself so kind and excellent a | picture of conscious guilt stirred by remorse and friend towards me!” | penitence ; and the tears began to trickle down her ‘“‘ Melissa,” I said, in an earnest tone, “if you | cheeks. really experience the slightest sentiment of grati-| ‘ Now tell me everything, Melissa,” I said, in tude on my behalf—if you are in the faintest de- | a low tremulous voice. “I will endeavour to hear gree mindful of the friendship which has sub- | you patiently, and without excitement—or at least sisted between us—and if you have any anxiety | without an external display of it. But beware to make what atonement may lie in your power | how you attempt to deceive me in any particular : for the ill you have done,—I conjure you to con- | for my reputation must and shall be fully cleared fess your whole conduct in every detail! I know | up with that nobleman—though at the same time much—far too much for you to be enabled to de- | I will for mercy’s sake endeavour to shield you ceive me in any particular. I will even tell you from the consequences of the tremendous crime that I know who your accomplice is: for on the | that you have committed.” day when the cheque was presented at the bank, there was a witness of the whole proceeding 7 “Ellen, I will tell you everything,” answered * Oh! this is more than I could possibly have expected,” said the weeping Melissa,—“ infinitely more than I could have dared ask! You are an Melissa,—“ yes, everything!—so that your own | angel of goodness, Ellen—and Iam a wretch—yes, reputation may be cleared up in a certain quarter: for ever since the deed was done I have felt as if I had committed a crime as black as murder itself! Yes—I have been haunted by remorse—my soul has been torn with regret—and I verily believe that if you had not by some means obtained a clue to the perfidy which has been committed, I should have sped to Lord Tynedale, thrown myself at his feet, and confessed everything !” “ And now you will confess everything to me,” | I said; “and if it be possible to pardon you, Melissa, you know that I am not merciless,—I am not implacable ¥ “Ob, pardon is an impossibility!” she wildly exclaimed. “But alas! I perceive, Ellen, that you are unacquainted with the extent of my con- duct in all its most hideous blackness! You think perhaps that having purloined the cheque, I merely in your name gave the Marquis of Tyne- dale some hopes? But Ob! far more deeply have I sinned—far more deeply have I compromised you !” “Good heavens, what can you have done?” I cried, shuddering with a wild vague apprehension. “Speak, Melissa—speak! Every moment of sus- pense is full of poignant torture for me!” “Ellen,” she exclaimed, casting herself upon her knees and extending her arms towards me, “vou will be an angel if you do not seek to kill me outright when I confess the full infamy—the abhorrent wickedness and hideous blackness of my conduct !” “ Oh, this is dreadful!” I murmured, feeling hee veriest wretch that crawls !—though, thank heaven, [am not yet so utterly lost or depraved as to be without a sense of remorse for what I have done!” “ Where there is remorse, there is the germ of penitence,” I answered: “ and where there is peni- tence, there ought to be mercy shown. - Believe me, Melissa, I will not injure you if I can pos: sibly avoid it- But remember,” I added in a firmer and severer tone, “ there is no earthly con- sideration which I shall regard while clearing up my own character !” “* And you are justified in thus speaking, Ellen,” answered Melissa. “Listen—and I will tell you everything. You are already acquainted with many of the incidents of my past life: you know ‘that under the dire pressure of circumstances iI became the victim of the seducer—and that /seducer was Colonel Bellew. But you likewise _ know that so soon as I began to obtain some re- | putation as a dancer, [ renounced the life of in- 'famy: and heaven is my witness that it was at the time a joyous and sincere renunciation on my part! Ifany one had then told me that I could _ever have relapsed into a course of error, I should have repelled the prophetic insinuation with indig- nation, with scorn, and with loathing. And for ‘awhile my life was a correct one—yes, for a period -Irose as high above every temptation as you yourself, Ellen, have ever risen! Three weeks have not as yet elapsed since I fell again; and then, when once I had so fallen—when once the brain—and I sank upon a seat. “Speak, Me-|a sudden callousness and indifference—a despe- lissa! You have now thoroughly prepared me | rate recklessness, so to speak, as to what else [ for whatsoever revelation you may have to make!” | might do or how much more deeply I might | | sick at the heart, while a dizziness seized upon my | relapse had taken place—lI felt as if seized with | “Ob, Eilen, Ellen!” she wildly cried ; “can! plunge down into the vortex of wickedness.” | J ECORNIClLOOKS,COMnnl