The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 308: what you’re looking at

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

288 REYNOLDS’ WORKS ‘‘ it is not that my blood has ceased to boil with indignant impatience. Ethel, Ethel, it is you who thus with a detest- able dissimulation persevere in attributing the crime to me, — it is you, I say, who hope to make me fancy that you really did not perpetrate that crime. You speak of motives: you had every motive. Think you that 1 comprehend not the terrific jealousy which swayed your heart when I spoke of wedding Isabella? Ah, confess that it was through love of me you did this deed, — confess it, Ethel, and I will pardon you, but for Heaven’s sake persevere not in ascribing it unto me!”’ ‘“‘ T also, Adolphus, have curbed my impatience,” answered the countess, ‘ that I might give you a fair chance for retractation, confession, and atonement, but you are obsti- nate. Now listen. We will not blind our eyes to the fact that the crime rests between us two, for no other living being had a motive in perpetrating it. It was therefore I or you who committed it, and you know, Adolphus, that it was yourself.”’ ‘‘ Ah, Ethel, you have indeed said truly,’ he exclaimed, “ that it lies between us two, but you will not look me much longer in the face and with such astounding dissimulation deny that all the guilt was wholly and solely yours! ”’ The countess literally ground her teeth with rage, and then she muttered, in a voice that was hoarse with the same feeling, ‘‘ Miscreant, you know that you are a murderer.”’ ‘“No, fiend in female shape! it is you who are a murderess,’’ and having spoken, the Earl of Lascelles walked abruptly forth from the room. | The countess flung herself upon the sofa, and gave way to bitterest weeping and most convulsing sobs. EORMICLOOOKS se)