Beautiful Rienzi; or, The Secret Vendetta — page 252: what you’re looking at

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

BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. 245 pathy? Thanks, sweet, generous girl; I could not lose your affection.” «* After that first interview with my mother, she held no communication with me whatever, though, for what purpose I could not divine, she had hired lodgings at Greely’s Mills, ten miles from the city, and lived there with her son. Hach day I expected to be summoned from my beloved ones; I was like the prisoner condemned to death, who thinks each step on the flags is that of the messenger who comes to lead him to the scaffold; the frightful pressure of anxiety, terror and helpless grief was more than I could bear; no wonder I plunged madly into distracting employments. You remem- ber the 29th of November? Ah! well may your cheek blanch, fateful, wretched day! ‘Miss Meredith and you were in your room, I alone in mine, when a boy was brought up stairs to me with a note, He stood by while I read it. Victor Joselyn and Dr. Pem- berton had arrived in New York, and demanded an inter- view. The firmament seemed falling to crush me; rather than meet them I would die: I sent back the boy with an answer, reiterating my desire for a separation, and abso- lutely refusing an interview. ‘The afternoon was spent in a prostration of grief. | | << At last my heart betrayed me; I resolved to tell the whole of the fearful tale to my friend Dr. Pemberton, and entreat him to interpose between me and the man who thought he was my husband. I felt that I was not able to fight my battle alone. I wrote the letter and sealed it with many prayers and blistering tears. You know what became of the letter I intrusted to you; Cecil Beaumont, still hop- ing, still ignorant of the impassable tie of blood, snatched it from you and it was consumed. Then I went down to him, full of desperate courage, though the mother’s promise bound me hand and foot. : «“‘You say you have a secret power over me, which will make me glad to accept you,’I said. ‘ What is that power?” As ) ‘«< «J have learned, by hints which my mother has let fall, that she knows more about your position in this house than the world knows,’ he answered, significantly. ‘< Indeed! And has Mrs. Beaumont not explained what she refers to?’ I returned, quietly. ‘I wish she had, and EComicbooks. co