The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 232: what you’re looking at

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

» LORD AND LADY SACKVILLE 209 shoulder. ‘‘ It is not your fault. I was foredoomed and predestined even before you and I first met. You know it— you know it, Horace,” repeated Lady Sackville; ‘‘ and long before you agreed to marry me you were aware how inextricably I was entangled, by what solemn vows I was engaged, by what pledges I was bound, and under what influences I was controlled. You knew that all the appear- ances of ease, comfort, and wealth which surrounded me at Acacia Cottage could have been swept away in a moment had I dared deviate from the path which had been chalked out for me to pursue. You were likewise aware that Mrs. Arbuthnot herself was a spy upon my actions, reporting every look, word, and deed of mine to the supreme authority in Stratton Street. Such was my condition before my marriage with you; and since — ”’ ‘Ah! since!’ ejaculated Horace, with passionate vehe- mence; ‘it is that that goads me to desperation. For when once you were my wife, I could have rescued you from those trammels which had previously enthralled you; I might have turned around upon those who had thus en- meshed you in their toils; I could have said, ‘ This lady is my wife, and shall not be the slave of your intrigues.’ All this could I have done, and you would have been saved, and we might still be enabled to look each other in the face without blushing at the thought of that crowning degrada- tion to which you, my unfortunate wife, have been doomed to submit.” “Not so, not so, Horace,” said Venetia, now evidently taking upon herself the task of consoling, reassuring, and tranquillizing her husband; ‘‘ for had we dared, when our hands were joined in matrimony, to rise up boldly against the authority which I had previously sworn to obey, — that very authority, too, which assented to our union only on express and positive conditions, — all the past would have been pitilessly and remorselessly made public in order to stamp me with the reputation of an adventuress.”’ “They could not have done it — they dared not!”’ cried Horace, stamping his foot with indignation. ‘‘ There was no ground for it; you were no adventuress. If you were, ’*twas by others you were made so.”’ “Ah!” said Venetia, with a peculiar look, “ you forget into whose hands I fell, and who first introduced me — ”’ COUN a LOOKS (C(O)