Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 128: what you’re looking at

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

LADY BESS’S HISTORY litt as the period of my emancipation. And now I come to the most extraordinary incident in my checkered life. It was on the morning after the attainment of my twenty-first year that I requested an interview with Sir John Marston, in order to receive whatsoever amount of money was due to me and take my leave. The request for an audience was granted, and when I repaired to the room in which he was seated alone, he manifested the most extraordinary courtesy. Desiring me to be seated, he addressed me in such a tone of urbanity and kindness that I could scarcely believe he was the same individual who used to treat me with such ruffian brutality. He commenced by stating that he was sorry if any past circumstances had rendered me unhappy while in his family, but attributed them all to hastiness of temper, for which he professed a profound sorrow. He then ques- tioned me — as indeed he had often done before — very minutely relative to my reminiscences of the earlier portion of my life; and thinking that now I had attained my ma- jority, and was going to leave him, he might have something important to communicate, I spoke without reserve. He then proceeded to make me the most extraordinary proposal, and although he opened his mind with cautious slowness, feeling his way, as it were, with the most wary circumlocution, yet the proposition, when fully developed, struck me speech- less with wonder for some minutes. It was to the effect that if I would consent to marry a certain person whom he had selected he would present me with a sum of five thousand pounds; but that he did not require me to live with this husband of his choice a day nor an hour nor a minute. On the contrary, he stipulated, as a part of his proposition, that we were to separate immediately after the ceremony and see each other no more. When I had recovered from the astonishment into which this proposal had thrown me I speedily reflected that 1t was one which, singular and indell- cate though it appeared, I should nevertheless do well to accept. To a person who was about to leave a situation with only a few pounds in her pocket, and utterly uncertain how soon she could procure another, without any known friends, too, in the whole wide world, the offer of five thou- sand pounds was magnificently tempting. Indeed, it was a temptation too brilliant and dazzling to be refused. I therefore speedily made up my mind to accept the offer. ECORVICLOO® Ss (E(0)