The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

THE FREEMASONS DAUGHTER. 129 CHAPTER IX. The world is cunning in its fancied wisdom ; But Providence by simplest means oft works, Leading the schemes of crime to justice’s ends. Simon GRIDLEY, who had for nearly a month been an inmate of Mr. Crab’s establishment, was pacing up and down his narrow cell, alternately giving way to tears or violent bursts of passion, as rage or despair possessed him. Under pretext that absolute retirement was necessary for him, he had been kept carefully secluded from his fellow-patients, and only permitted to take occasional exercise in the smallest of the court- yards, at an hour when the rest of the inmates of the asylum were excluded from it. “T shall go mad,” he exclaimed, wringing his hands; “I’m sure I shall go mad. The frightful solitude, broken only by still more frightful cries, is gradually doing its work. 1 dread the approach of night—darkness is hideous to me! Isee the pale faces of my old comrade Lawrence and his dying son—see them distinctly, though not a ray of light enters the accursed den. ‘That’s strange,” he muttered; “no light, and yet I see them. Yes, yes—I must be going VOL. I. K COUN Goo! SS (SO