The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

70 THE COURT OF LONDON But Gertrude could give no response; the truth she dared not tell, and no falsehood came ready-made to her lips in that moment of indescribable terror. Speechless therefore did she remain, but gazing up at her astounded and be- wildered master with so frightened and deprecating a regard that it showed she expected little mercy at his hands. The Earl of Curzon closed the door of the boudoir, and leaning back against it, gazed down in speechless astonish- ment upon the kneeling girl. There she was, clad in the splendid raiment of her mistress, and with Editha’s pearls, too, on her hair and around her neck. Yes, and she had returned home muffled up in Editha’s own ermine cloak. But it was impossible that she could have personated the countess at Lady Lechmere’s grand entertainment; she must have assumed that dress after her mistress had figured in it at the ball, and she must have come home thus dis- guised in the carriage in order to afford Editha an oppor- tunity of remaining out elsewhere. Such were the earl’s reflections. Yes, he saw it all; the Mmanceuvre was palpable enough. And now, too, did a cloud of recollections gush in unto his mind, and a light simultaneously broke upon them, clearing up all that was mysterious therein before. The incidents of that night when for the first time he suspected his wife’s fidelity all sprang up as vividly to his mind’s eye as if they were just being enacted over again. And what were the incidents of that memorable night? Be it remembered that on the occasion to which we must thus retrospect, the Earl of Curzon had entered a hackney- coach and planted himself immediately opposite his own mansion, in order to watch Editha’s movements, and that he saw a female figure, cloaked and veiled, enter the private cairiage and drive away. In the hackney-coach he had followed the carriage to Lady Lechmere’s, and had seen the veiled figure enter her ladyship’s mansion. Then he was satisfied that it was his wife whom he had been watching. It must next be remembered that on returning home on foot, he had encountered another veiled and cloaked figure, whom he had fancied to be Gertrude; and when he endeavoured to engage her in conversation and make love to her, she at first mutely rejected his overtures and then screamed out. These were the incidents over which the earl retrospected, Gomicbdooks (E(@)