The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 190: what you’re looking at

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

THE FREEMASONS DAUGHTER. 181 “‘ The clock must be wrong!” she exclaimed. “ It can never be so late!” Her eye glanced at the little Dutch clock, which kept mournfully ticking against the kitchen wall; she had never known that to deceive her; it was the regulator of all the clocks, good, bad, and indifferent, in the humble neighbourhood; the accusing hand stood exactly at four. She tried to deceive herself, but could not. God help her! her woman’s heart was heavy. ‘What can have happened ?’’ she added, wiping away a tear with the corner of her apron; ‘‘ and what could he want with that cord and hook which he asked for when he left the house? Surely he has never been tempted to—no, no! if Tim is not a religious man, he has too much sense for that !” And the poor creature, with an involuntary shudder, closed her eyes, as if to shut out the dreadful thought which her excited imagination had conjured up. ‘“‘ Perhaps, after all,” she-thought, “he is only out drinking.” She knew that he was vexed: but then she remem- bered that her husband never drank: so that poor consolation was dismissed, as every preceding one had been which had presented itself to her imagination. She felt more and more convinced that, whatever the cause of his absence, it was involuntary—and her tears flowed the faster. Much as she detested drunkenness, she would have deemed it the happiest moment of her COniiclooecl SS (SO