The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER V SUICIDE OR MURDER? It was about eleven o’clock in the forenoon, and the Earl of Desborough was seated in the library at Stamford Manor. A book lay open before him; but although his eyes remained mechanically fixed upon its pages, his thoughts were trav- elling away from the subject of the volume. For he was reflecting upon the many grave and saddening incidents which had occurred in his household, alike in Berkeley Square and at Stamford Manor, within the last few months; and he felt deeply, deeply for the sorrow and the shame that had fallen upon the head of her whom he adored with so sublime a worship. So profoundly absorbed was he in his meditations that he did not hear the door open and close again; but he was suddenly startled by feeling a hand laid gently upon his shoulder. He looked up, and he beheld his wife standing close by his chair; but he was instantaneously struck by the mingled wildness, fierce determination, and bitter hatred that were legible upon her countenance. An ominous light burned in those eyes the glory of which was marred by the corrugation of the ebon brows; the lips, whence the rich vital colouring had almost completely fled, were closely compressed ; and her countenance wore a pallor that looked all the more ghastly in consequence of the olive tint of the complexion. “Heavens! what—some new source of sorrow?” ex- claimed the earl, starting from his seat and gazing with an intense anxiety upon his wife. ‘“ Say rather, some new reason for a prompt and summary vengeance,”’ replied Eleanor, in a low thick voice; and she gave utterance with difficulty to these words which appeared to choke her. 33 COnnICLOOOKS (F©)