Lady Evelyn — page 137: what you’re looking at

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

130 be sega Rejected. Even that cool hand was staggered by the superior cool- ness of this master villain. “What secret?’ he repeated, with a fierce, gasping laugh. ‘“‘Your lordship’s memory is of the shortest. You never bribed any one to swear away a life that stood between you and a title, did you? Give me five hundred pounds—it’s but a small sum—and I'll keep the secret to my grave_that I’ve kept for twenty years.” “Not five hundred pence, not five hundred farthings! Begone, you returned transport, or the servants shall kick you from the gates! . And hark ye, my hang-dog tramp, you evince all the symptoms of madness; your words are the wildest of all wild ravings. I am a very charitable man, aS you may have heard, and my influence is great. There is a private mad-house about twenty miles from here, and the patient who enters that mad-house had much better be nailed in his coffin. at once. Now, let me hear the faintest whisper .of these delirious ravings of yours again, and five hours after you will be within the walls of that mad-house-for life. I am going to the Hall now. I shall tell them there there is a dangerous lunatic loose in the grounds, and send the servants in search. If they find you here, look—to—yourself! You know me of old, William Morgan!” He hissed the last words in his ear as he passed him, his gleaming eyes on fire. The tramp quailed from head to foot, and shrank before that baleful gaze. An instant later and the Earl of Clontarf had disappeared, and Mor- gan, the returned transport, stood alone, livid with fear and fury, under the glittering stars. CHAPTER VIII. . REJECTED. There were theatricals at Royal Rest. The grand old manor was filled with guests—the long array of state chambers, empty the year round, were all occupied now, and valets and chamber-maids swarmed in the corridors and servants’ hall. Lovely ladies outshone one another in the lofty drawing-rooms night after night; flirtations began in March last, in London, broken off abruptly when comicbooks.co <=)