The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 226: what you’re looking at

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

LORD AND LADY SACKVILLE 209 shoulder. ‘‘ It is not your fault. I was foredoomed and predestined even before you and I first met. You know it— you know it, Horace,” repeated Lady Sackville; ‘and long before you agreed to marry me you were aware how inextricably I was entangled, by what solemn vows I was engaged, by what pledges I was bound, and under what influences I was controlled. You knew that all the appear- ances of ease, comfort, and wealth which surrounded me at Acacia Cottage could have been swept away in a moment had I dared deviate from the path which had been chalked out for me to pursue. You were likewise aware that Mrs. Arbuthnot herself was a spy upon my actions, reporting every look, word, and deed of mine to the supreme authority in Stratton Street. Such was my condition before my marriage with you; and since — ’”’ “Ah! since!” ejaculated Horace, with passionate vehe- mence; “it is that that goads me to desperation. For when once you were my wife, I could have rescued you from those trammels which had previously enthralled you; I might have turned around upon those who had thus en- meshed you in their toils; I could have said, ‘ This lady is my wife, and shall not be the slave of your intrigues.’ All this could I have done, and you would have keen saved, and we might still be enabled to look each other in the face without blushing at the thought of that crowning degrada- tion to which you, my unfortunate wife, have been doomed to submit.” : “Not so, not so, Horace,” said Venetia, now evidently taking upon herself the task of consoling, reassuring, and tranquillizing her husband; ‘ for had we dared, when our hands were joined in matrimony, to rise up boldly against the authority which I had previously sworn to obey, — that very authority, too, which assented to our union only on express and positive conditions, — all the past would have been pitilessly and remorselessly made public in order to stamp me with the reputation of an adventuress.” “They could not have done it — they dared not!” cried Horace, stamping his foot with indignation. ‘There was no ground for it; you were no adventuress. If you were, ‘twas by others you were made so.”’ “ Ah!” said Venetia, with a peculiar look, ‘‘ you forget into whose hands I fell, and who first introduced me — ” ECONNICLOO© CS (SO)