The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

THE PORTRAIT 3” The portrait was now revealed. But, oh, horror! oh, the agonies, the appalling agonies of that moment, alike for the unhappy earl and the maddened Countess of Desborough! An ejaculation of despair burst from the former; but a wild cry, whose thrilling intonations betrayed all the ex- cruciating anguish which tore her breast, broke from the hps of Eleanor, and, reeling half-around, she fell senseless on the carpet. “‘ Cover up your picture — bear it away — this moment,” said the earl, in a thick, hoarse tone, and with a look of in- describable horror, as he grasped Woodfall’s arm convul- sively. ‘“‘ We have recognized in that portrait some one whom we knew — under another name — and in earlier years— But no matter,” he exclaimed, suddenly checking himself, lest in the excuses which he was attempting he might let drop something calculated to engender strange suspicions in the mind of the artist. ‘‘ Pray leave us, Mr. Woodfall — pardon this scene —do not mention it else- where — it is very painful— and come and see me again in a day or two.” While the nobleman was thus speaking, in hurried and disjointed sentences and with a dreadful excitement of man- ner, Woodfall had replaced the covering over his picture; and he quitted the apartment just as the domestics, whose ears the thrilling scream of the countess had reached, rushed thither to see what had occurred. (C(O) Anyi } cS {