The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 214: what you’re looking at

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

THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. 201 have terrified me profoundly—and I must Insist that we return at once to the hotel.” * You will subject me, then, to the matohless hu- miliation of having besought an hour of your love, and experiencing a refusal?” murmured Emma, bending down her hazel eyes, upon the lashes of which the tear-drops trembled—while the blush of shame was now upon her cheeks, and her bosom ‘was convulsed with sobs. “Tecarcely think you comprehend the purport of your own words, Miss Owen,” said Loftus, em- phatically: “and I hope to God that you do not. Very, very painfal would it be for me to imagine——” “Oh!” she exclaimed, in another paroxysm of frenzied exaltation: “you must imagine the truth —and of that truth Iam not ashamed. For you have filled my heart with a passion which is con- ee and all my happiness—my very life ee indeed—ts ataked upon the hope of sppeasing ft Revile—scorn—luath—abhor me as you will,— denounce me as unmaidenly—proseribe me as a disgrace to my sex,—but still you cannot alter the condition of my heart. And surely when a fond, a loving, and a devoted woman offers to abandon herself to you, not only asa proof of that illimi- table worship—that frenzied adoration,—but also that she herself may have the recollection of that hour of love and blies to compensate her for the loss of thee thereafter and enable her to sustain the weight of the future years of her existence,— surely, I say, you will not her altogether I" Thus speaking, Emma fixed her fond and carnest regards in profound entreaty upon Jocelyn Loftus, who, shocked at the dreadful depravity whieh was enveloped in such softly insidious language, could not prevent his looks from betraying the disgust that filled his soul. comliclbooks.com