The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

98 THE COURT OF LONDON ‘Ah! your ladyship was guilty of a cruel perfidiousness,”’ exclaimed the colonel, “‘ in letting that scoundrel Tash loose upon me. But enough of the past; the present absorbs all considerations.”’ | “Tash, did you say?’’ exclaimed Venetia. ‘‘ Have you, then, met the captain within these walls? ” ‘How can you pretend ignorance on that head?” re- joined Malpas. ‘‘ Was not the villain posted in the very room opposite that where you were just now? Ah! you did not think it enough to make a dupe and a fool of me, and to tell me from inside the door of one room that you had changed your mind, but you must set that whiskered bravo to lay wait in another room to steal forth, pounce upon me when your maid left me, and then, after the most terrible threats, compel me to put on this debasing attire. Ah! Lady Sackville, 1t was too bad, it was too bad! But the moment of triumph, I might almost say revenge, has now come.”’ And thus speaking he literally sprang upon Venetia, threw his arms around her splendid neck, and despite her struggles, covered her face, her shoulders, and her bosom with his hot and burning kisses. ‘Release me, villain!’’ she said, in accents half-stifled with rage, “‘ or I will scream.”’ ; ‘Scream, then,” cried Malpas. ‘“ Bring the whole house- hold hither, and I will proclaim all I know, — that Secs is your suxamioun es “QO villain that you are!’’ exclaimed Venetia, now seem- ing like a tigress goaded to fury. ‘ But I will have a terrible revenge,’ and flinging him from her with a foree which would even have been tremendous for a man and was per- fectly marvellous for a woman, she sprang toward the table where a silver fruit-knife was laying. Malpas, whose passions of revenge, malignity, and desire were all aroused to the highest pitch, was armed with that prutish energy which, under such circumstances, supplies the place of real courage on the part of the coward, and he was perfectly desperate in his resolve to gratify his madden- ing impulses. Quick as thought did he divine her intention as she sprang to the table, and bounding forward even more swiftly than she, he clutched the knife. ‘Venetia,’ he cried, instantaneously turning upon ECORNIECLIOO KS (E(0) ne