Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

MR. GUNTHORPE’S VISITS 67 and Frank during the time that he was thus occupied, but that his gaze was intent, and that he studied the picture earnestly, was evident from the circumstance that his head moved not during those minutes. As he turned away from the window and gave back the portrait to Lady Bess, she observed that there was the mark of a tear-drop upon it, and she felt more convinced than even at first that Mr. Gun- thorpe was in some way or another intimately yet mysteri- ously connected with the circumstances relating to the past and which the present was rapidly developing. “My dear young friend,”’ said the old gentleman, address- ing himself to Adolphus, “ the principal object of my visit here to-day was to speak to you upon a certain delicate matter. I am indeed glad that I came,’ he continued, flinging a rapid glance upon Elizabeth and Frank, “ for I have heard things which I little expected to hear, and which have interested me profoundly. But upon those points we shall touch no more to-day. For the present let me speak to you, Adolphus, relative to your own affairs. Do not regard me as a stranger; | am not one. When you were a boy, I knew you well, but you doubtless recollect me not. I am so much altered,’’ and these last words were uttered mournfully. “My dear sir,’ whispered Elizabeth Chandos, drawing Mr. Gunthorpe aside, “it pains Adolphus to dwell too long upon the past. If you will, I am perfectly disposed to submit to you all the proofs I have obtained in respect to the atrocious cuilt of his uncle, the usurping Lord Everton. Come with me into another room.’ Mr. Gunthorpe according followed Lady Bess é0 the oppo- site parlour, and when they were alone together, she narrated to him all that she had learned from the lips of Adolphus relative to the incidents of his earlier years, and how he was carried off from Everton Park in the middle of the night, just before his father, General Lord Everton, was expected home from India. She likewise explained how on that very same night the corpse of another boy of the same age was substituted for the living heir. Mr. Gunthorpe rose from his seat at this part of the narrative, and paced to and fro in the little apartment in a state of the utmost excitement. “ I knew that Everton,” alluding to the uncle, ‘‘ was a villain,” he said, “ but still I thought him not capable of Gomicdoo ‘S (FO)