The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 141: what you’re looking at

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

es re 128 THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. w>we!—what means this outburst of emotion? Is it ing eo very serious—or eo very terrible P” “Ah! it woukd be alike serious and terrible if true”’ responded the young lady, now suddenly raising her eyes and gasing with a mixture of in- quirmg carnestness and reviving confidence in her lover’s countenance. “ But no—it is impossible— ig cannot be true! You would not deceive me thus !” . what mean you? what mean you P” exclaimed the Marquis, painfully excited. “ Do not hesitate to speak! There must be no reserve be- tween us" “ No, there must not be—I feel that there must not be!” interrupted the young lady. “Some months have elapeéd since first from my mother’s lips dropped the statement which now weighs upon my mind; and -for the reasons I have already ex- plained, I would not mention it to you. But this day I have had « serious conversation with my eister—-and I have been led more than ever to feel tating, every waspicioms the tan doubt and dissi- pating every suspicion,—the more s0, since you yourself, Etienne, began the conversation ere now by the assurance that a favourable turn in your cireumetances would soon enable you to conduct me to the altar. Therefore, now~—-on this present oe- easion—must we converse frankly ———” “st ia what I wish, Cunstance! I have already told you so!” said the Marquis with some degrees of vehemence; “and I cen assure you, my sweet girl, that you are torturing me most acately by this delay in telling me everything. Gay what it is that hangs ike a doubt upon yuur mind, and to which you are so reluctant to give utterance.” “Etienne,” responded Constance, raising her beautiful blue eyes and fixing them earnestly upon her lover, “I am told that you have already been married; and that although separated from your wife, ahe is still alive !’’ Ifa thunderbolt had fallen at the feet of the Marquis of Villebelle. be could not have been more dismayed. It was a perfect consternation that seized upon him: he turned pale as death—the arm that was engirdling Constance, fell as if palsied from her waist—and he gased upon her in vacant ceed bewilderment. “O God!” cried the unhappy young lady, “it is true—it is too true!” and covering her face with ber hands, she burst into a passionate flood of weeping. “ Yes, it is true, it is teue!” echoed the Marquis, in a tone of rending agony. “ But good God! how could this secret have been known ?” “Ah! litde matter how it was known,” mur. gaured Constanos, stricken with despair, “ since you confess it is the truth. O Etienne, wherefore have you deetived me thus?”’—and starting frum her acat, she was about to break away from him with frantic excitement, when he took her hand—he fell upon his knees—he besought her to remain—he im- plored her to tarry for a few minutes to hear him. There wes a desperation in his looks and a wild. new in his tone which frightened Constance Fare- field; and though she felt hurt, mortified, and tice wounded in all her keenest sensibilities, appeared as if all the happiness of her life were suddenly annihilated could not leave him thus, for she felt that she loved , bien still ! h it. native scil, when he was seized with @ dangerous by a single blow,—yet sho | illness, which in s few days proved fatal. “Sueak, Etienne,” she said, in a low deep tone clouded with ineffable emotions. “I will not refuse you a hearing.” She resumed her seat: he placed himself by hee side, and would have still retained her hand in his own—but she gently withdrew it; and then her grief burst forth anew in convulaing sobs. “Oh‘ calm yourself, calm yourself, I implore you!” he said in accents of passionate entreaty. “'Weuld you see me kill myself at your feet? But I can endure anything rather than this anguish of your's! The spectacle drives mo mad—because it is I who have caused it. Yet if you know al}_.....”’ “Then tell me frank and candid with me!” said Constance. “And, Oh!” she added, in a voice full of gushing emotion, “if there be ex- tenuation on your behalf, God knows ttiat I shall oaly be too willing to admit it !” “Tf you will grant me your patience, Constance, resumed the Marquis, “I will tell you everything ; and you will hear one of the most e histories that ever fell from the lips of human being. Talk of the incidents of novels and romances being extravagant! their interest palle and wanes into mawkish insipidity—their excitement subsides into monotony and dullness—when compared with the story I am about to relate! And that there is ex- tenuation, if not a complete vindication for the course I have pursued in respect to yourself, Con- stance, I may venture to promise. We y—I do not even know but that I should have been fully justi fied in averring that I am sot a married man at this moment!” “Oh! if all this be true!” exclaimed Constance, her countenance b ing up with the animation of hope: for her’s had a few moments back been a despair eo profound that even the slightest glim- mering which bade her hope again, was a relief ineffable. “Shali I commence at once?” asked the French nobleman, in a low soft voice: and again he took her hand, which was not now withdrawn. “ Yee—-proceed, Etienne—proceed—and may God grant——But I am tortured with suspense! Pro- ceed |”? The Marquis of Villebelle accordingly commenced in the following manner :— “You are aware that my father, being devoted te the cause of the Bourbona, lost all his immense estates in France by confiscation when the first Re- volution broke out: you are likewise aware that when the Bourbons were restored, they behaved with the deepest ingratitude to my father, refusing him any indemnification for the losses he had sus- tained on their behalf. It was throagh disgust at their conduct, as much as through love for this country, that he preferred a residence in England rather than in his own native land, It is exactly eight years ago—consequently, in 1836—that my father returned for the last time to France, in the hope of receiving from the hand of Louis Philippe (who had then been six years on the throne) that jus- which had been denied by Louis XVIII and Charles X. But scarcely had he set foot on his I had been left behind him in England; but upon re ceiving the sad intelligence of my father’s death, + (CO OOOIlK (CO