The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 298: what you’re looking at

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

268 THE COURT OF LONDON thing of the painful joyousness and martyrized enthusiasm of self-devotion in its tone and manner, ‘I would not live to make you miserable, my Eleanor, but I would die to ensure your happiness! ”’ ‘“ Just Heavens! what mean you, Francis? ” shrieked forth his wife, a strange and fearful suspicion flashing to her brain, and the perspiration started out in beadlike drops from her brow. “‘ Eleanor,” said the nobleman, taking lee hand, — that hand which was not withdrawn, — and at the same time he gazed steadfastly upon her, with a desperate determina- tion written on all his features, ‘‘ Eleanor, this is the first occasion on which we have been enabled to look each other in the face without horror, and to touch each other without loathing, since that fatal evening — ”’ ‘Yes, yes, I comprehend you, Francis,” interrupted the noble lady, with a wild impatience. ‘ But what thought, what purpose is now uppermost in your mind? Speak, I conjure you! Leave me not in doubt, I implore you!” and in the agony of intolerable suspense, she laid the hand that was disengaged upon her panting bosom as if to still the | painful throbbings of the heart that beat within. ‘I will explain myself in a few words, Eleanor,” said the earl, all the recent animation of his countenance being now lost in an expression of mournful and despairing resolution. “ You have already assented to the proposition that we can- not live together any longer, and you have likewise declared that it would be imprudent for us to separate. In these opinions I coincide with you, and therefore neither alterna- tive is open to us. But is there no other course left? Is there no remedy for the sad position in which we are relatively placed? We are now gazing upon each other without aver- sion; but it is only because feelings of a nature still more potent have arisen to supersede for the instant that mutual abhorrence and distrust which never can be annihilated altogether. No, that chilling reserve, that sullen formality, and that cold embarrassment will all come back again; and so soon as the present excitement has evaporated, we shall Once more shun each other’s glance and dread each other’s touch.” “ Tis true, my God! too true,’”? murmured Eleanor, in @ voice of smothered bitterness and agony. GOmiGcdoo “S m