Alice, or The Mysteries, Book XI 6.2.01

Alice, or The Mysteries, Book XI - IT is now time to return to Lord Vargrave.  His most sanguine hopes were realized; all things seemed to prosper.  The hand of Evelyn Cameron was pledged to him, the wedding-day was fixed.  In less than a week she was to confer upon the ruined peer a splendid dowry, that would smooth all obstacles in the ascent of his ambition.  From Mr. Douce he learned that the deeds, which were to transfer to himself the baronial possessions of the head of the house of Maltravers, were nearly completed; and on his wedding day he hoped to be able to announce that the happy pair had set out for their princely mansion of Lisle Court.  In politics; though nothing could be finally settled till his return, letters from Lord Saxingham assured him that all was auspicious: the court and the heads of the aristocracy daily growing more alienated from the premier, and more prepared for a Cabinet revolution.  And Vargrave, perhaps, like most needy men, overrated the advantages he should derive from, and the servile opinions he should conciliate in, his new character of landed proprietor and wealthy peer.  He was not insensible to the silent anguish that Evelyn seemed to endure, nor to the bitter gloom that hung on the brow of Lady Doltimore.

• Alice, or The Mysteries, Book X by Edward Bulwer Lytton.
• And Alice!--Will the world blame us if you are left happy at the last?
• We are daily banishing from our law-books the statutes that disproportion
  punishment to crime.
• Daily we preach the doctrine that we demoralize wherever we strain justice into cruelty.
• It is time that we should apply to the Social Code the Wisdom we recognize in Legislation! 
• It is time that we should do away with the punishment of death for inadequate
  offences, even in books.
• It is time that we should allow the morality of atonement, and permit to Error the right to hope, as the reward ofsubmission to its suffering.
• Nor let it be thought that the close to Alice's career can offer temptation to the offence of its commencement.
• Eighteen years of sadness, a youth consumed in silent sorrow over the grave of Joy, have images that throw over these pages a dark and warning.