The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 369: what you’re looking at

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

354 ——— woman, clasping her hands appealingly, and casting THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT, punished for my fault? For think you not, Lady her shuddering looks around, “do not allude to it. | Saxondale, that it will be a cruel ordeal for me to The very walls have ears. Oh, my dear Dr. Ferney! | proclaim all this to the knowledge of justice and did you not assure me but a short time back, at your house, that my secret was sacred - that it was I involve your name in the transaction ?”’ “Dr. Ferney,”’ said her ladyship, now suddenly my own inystery, into which you would never seek | recalling to mind her predetermination to assert to penetrate? I beseech and implore that you will | her empire over him through the me lium of that not fly from your word!” « But what am I to do in this present case? Let us think no more of the past for the moment. Here, Lady Saxondale, has a foul murder come to my knowledge. It is a murder perpetrated by means of a venom which I myself discovered; and I also am made the discoverer of the awful t:agedy it has produced. The finger of God is in all this: it is heaven itself which is prompting me on to bring to justice the perpctrator of that crime! What then, I ask, am I to do? This crime was committed under your roof. God forbid that I should attribute it to you! No—it were impos- sible! If you then be guiltless, will you not aid me in fixing upon the guilty one ?” “Oh, but all this is most dreadful !’ murmured Lady Saxondale, still with clasped hands—still with appealing looks—still with ineffable anguish in every lineament of her pale countenance. “If an ex- posure be made, must I not confess that I purloined the phial of poison from your house? What will be thought of me? I shall be ruined! A lady who visita a single man stealthily—who is admitted by him into all the mysteries of his laboratory ——Ah, Dr. Ferney have merey upon me—I beseech you to have mercy upon me !—or else take a dagger and plunge it into this bosom!” Lady Saxondale did not throw herself upon her knees as she thus spoke: but her anguish was truly unfeigned—her inquietude was too great not to render her affliction genuine. As she sat by the physician’s side upon the sofa, she leant towards him with an agony of appeal in her looks, her atti- tude, and her gestures; and as she gave utterance to the closing words of her well nigh frenzied speech, she pressed her hands convulsively to that bosom for which she invoked the dagger as an alternative rather than an exposure. “Oh, my God! what am I to do?” murmured the physician: and half-averting his countenance, he raised one hand to his pale forehead. ‘“ What am I to do?” “What are you to do?” cried Lady Saxondale. “ Bury the subject in.oblivion !” “I cannot—I dare not,” responded Ferney, shaking his head solemnly, but wit a look of the deepest affliction, “If I conceal my knowledge of this crime, [ become as it were an accessory to it: and how shall I ever satisfy my own conscience ? But tell me, Lady Saxondale, do your suspicions fall upon any one in your household? Refleet— consider—to whom did you ever impart the seeret of that subtle poison? You must have spoken of it to some one: tell me who it was! For the voice of that murdered woman cries up to heaven for vengeance; and heaven itself has marked me as its instrument in bringing the murderer to justice. Nay, more—does it not almost seem as if there were retribution in‘all this?—as if I had pene- trated too deeply into the mysteries of nature—had _ <i tt LLL LLL LLL LLL CL LL LLL LL love of which she knew herself to be the object,— “I believe you once entertained sumething like a feeling of friendship towards me — perhaps more than triendship——” “Yes, yes: it was more—it is more!” interrupted the physician; “for the sentiment is deathless ! Need I tell you that from the first noment I beheld you at my mother’s house nineteen years ago, your image has never been absent from my mind? You know it—you know it. I gave you that assurance the other day, when you visited my house: and it ‘is the truth—as I repeat it again this evening! But there is a duty, Lady Saxondale, which I have to perform; and though my own heart should break in accomplishing that duty—though it should crush me down with sorrow into the dust to drag your name before the tribunals of the country—yet what alternative have 1? Alas! that duty must be per- formed! Tell me therefore—on whom must our suspicions settle themselves ?” “ Dr. Ferney,” said her ladyship, “do not tell me that you ever entertained the slightest love for me. No, no—it is impossible—you could not! If you had, you would not torment me thus now. Good God! do you not comprehend the immensity of the evil you will work ?” “T see but two things which can tell against you,” answered the doctor. ‘The first is that you visited my house. Surely the purity of your own life, and my unsullied reputation, will combine to disarm scandal in that respect? And after all, may not a iady visit a physician? Then, as for your taking the phial—the deed can be well explained as arising from the curiosity of the moment. It isnot a watch —nor a purse—nor a jewel—nor anything valuable ; and Lady Saxondale need not fear the positive im- putation of dishonesty on that account.” * Nevertheless, I conjure you, my dear Dr. Fer- ney, not to urge this matter. Yes—I entreat, I implore you,” continued Lady Saxondale, in aecents of the most earnest pleading, “ not to bring it before the world!” Oh! what would you have me think ?” exclaimed the physician, suddenly fastening looks of mingled horror and uncertainty upon Lady Saxondale. “ No, no—suffer not such a terrible suspicion to remain in my mind. For your own sake, therefore, lose not a moment in furnishing the clue to the unravelment of this mystery.” , « But that suspicion which has struck you,” said her ladyship, aghast and trembling. “ Tt is a hideous one—and every moment does it become stronger,” rejoined Ferney. “ Indeed, there is an excitement in my mind such as for years 1 have not experienced. Would to heaven that all this had not occurred.” “Dr. Ferney,” said her ladyship, in tones that were now really hollow and sepulchral—not to her own ear alone, but to that of the physician,—* you are dragging me on toa revelation which I shudder dragged forth unholy secrets—had tasted of the | to contemplate.” forbidden tree of knowledge—and am now to be “Oh! then my suspicion is confirmed,” mur- a ma et a Ts nn etn rr pe i EORNIECLOO (C <=) (E()