Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 202: what you’re looking at

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

LADY EVERTON 185 awakened her to the sense of the grievous wrong she had done him, that her peace of mind was destroyed for ever, that her happiness was annihilated, and that were she even to see the marquis again, his presence would drive her to despair. She conjured him to study, as well as he was able, to banish her image from his mind; or, if he must still continue to think of her, that he would only regard her in the light of a friend sincerely wishing him well, but whom he must never see again. She repeated what her brother- in-law had said, to the effect that by crushing within her bosom all inclination to enter the marriage state again, she might make some atonement to the spirit of her departed husband, and that as she had proved unfaithful to him in life, she would prove faithful to his memory after death. She assured the marquis that she penned that letter of her own accord, without coercion, and even without the know!l- edge of Lord Everton; that its contents were the sponta- neous effusion of her own heart, dictated by a religious piety of feeling, which she implored him not to disturb. “The Marquis of Eagledean submitted to this decision, but-he did not believe that Alexandrina was a free agent when she wrote that letter. Nevertheless, if she were indeed under the coercion of her brother-in-law, he saw that it must be through a threat that her past conduct should be exposed to the world, and the marquis was prepared to make any sacrifice of his own feelings, and to consent that she should do the same on her part, rather than see her name dragged through the mire of opprobrium, scorn, and dishonour. He felt assured that Everton was a villain, but Alexandrina was too completely in his power to permit the possibility of his being thwarted. Nevertheless, deeply, oh, most deeply, did he compassionate that woman whom he loved so tenderly and so enduringly, and it cost him a severe struggle and many a bitter pang to abstain from flying back to England and _ imploring her to dare all consequences — exposure, shame, _ and the ruin of her reputation — rather than consent to an _ eternal severance. Yet he did exercise this mastery over _ himself, and from that instant the whole aspect of the world _ was completely changed to the Marquis of Eagledean. ~ Leaving Germany, the- marquis repaired to Italy, and settled himself at Naples. There he assumed another name, | _—the name of a civilian. He thus laid aside his rank in Gomichdoo Ss (C(O) m