From that time the life of this scared and enervated lady--whose
existence might have been developed to so much higher purpose but
for the ignoble ambition of her parents and the conventions of the
time--was one of obsequious amativeness towards a perverse and cruel
man. Little personal events came to her in quick succession--half a
dozen, eight, nine, ten such events,--in brief; she bore him no less
than eleven children in the eight following years, but half of them
came prematurely into the world, or died a few days old; only one, a
girl, attained to maturity; she in after years became the wife of
the Honourable Mr. Beltonleigh, who was created Lord D'Almaine, as
may be remembered.
There was no living son and heir. At length, completely worn out in
mind and body, Lady Uplandtowers was taken abroad by her husband, to
try the effect of a more genial climate upon her wasted frame. But
nothing availed to strengthen her, and she died at Florence, a few
months after her arrival in Italy.
Contrary to expectation, the Earl of Uplandtowers did not marry
again. Such affection as existed in him--strange, hard, brutal as
it was--seemed untransferable, and the title, as is known, passed at
his death to his nephew. Perhaps it may not be so generally known
that, during the enlargement of the Hall for the sixth Earl, while
digging in the grounds for the new foundations, the broken fragments
of a marble statue were unearthed.
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