Beautiful Rienzi; or, The secret vendetta — page 228: what you’re looking at

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

BEAUTIFUL RIENZL 223 in my own bosom; attempt not to unvail my secret. If there is one spark of mercy left in your heart for such a wormas her you once loved, forbear to see her; return to England and live again. I. R.’ «Every word of this unnatural] letter was damnatory evi- dence of the truth of Cecil Beaumont’s boast; she was in- constant; her very initials, which were no longer those of her husband, proved that she wished to be free. «Tet us try one more chance,’ said Pemberton; ‘and if she’s as false as I begin to think her, we'll off this very night from cursed New York, and leave mother and wife to follow their own devices. We’ll go to the concert-room —she can’t forbid yon a public hall, and we'll judge for ourselves.’ | ‘* We drove at the hour appointed to the Cybelle Concert- room, and quietly took our places behind a pillar where we could see without being seen. I was watching the grand entrance, expecting to see my wife enter as one of the audi- ence, when my friend violently plucked my sleeve. Ilooked upon the platform and beheld her whom I had come to claim as wife, enter, leaning on Cecil Beaumont’s arm, a flush of pleasure.on her face; magnificently dressed, my double ring discarded, though she had fondly written to me once that it should never leave her hand until her heart was cold in death. ‘Stunned and maddened, I sat and watched; her treach- ery seemed complete. When she came forward to sing with you a duet, Beaumont crept near, and methought his mock- ing, triumphant glance swept round the hall to find the man whom he had supplanted; those lurid eyes—so like the haunting eyes which sometimes pursued me from my childhood, and which were indeed the eyes of my wretched mother—seemed to sneer and laugh at my calamity, and crazed me with sudden frenzy. Heedless of my friend’s restraining hand, I leaped from behind the pillar and stood quivering with fury before my faithless wife. ‘She saw me, and with an affrighted shriek fell back and tainted, while you, her small, foreign-looking compan- ion, gazed wildly from face to face for the cause of her terror. “The sight of the miserable girl lying senseless at your feet, tore my heart with remorse. With a heart turned to steel I walked out of the house, and my anxious friend kept close to my heels. CORNUCG OOO S (©)