Her Faithful Knight — page 210: what you’re looking at

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

206 A Shadow on the Window. cottage, which had been empty since the Christmas quar- ter. A little discreet “pumping” the next morning revealed the fact that a handsome young gentleman, very well dressed, had hung about the place immediately after their departure, and had made endless inquiries of the neigh- bors concerning the whereabouts of the Misses Knight. He had even gone the length of calling for the key of the cottage on the landlord, who kept a shop in the Ham- mersmith road, and coming with him to view the place, asking questions all the time. | Dorothy shivered at the thought that their little home had been degraded by that man’s evil presence; but she had foreseen some such move on the part of the Hon. Darcy, and had primed the landlord with the intelligence that his former lodgers had “gone abroad to reside with some relatives, and that they did not propose ever to re- turn to England.” Having thus, as she supposed, permanently put him off the scent, she sincerely hoped that the Hon. Darcy would transfer his violent and evanescent passion for her to some other woman and trouble her no more. Of that terrible honeymoon journey she could not bear to think, although it was sometimes forced before her in her dreams. Then, in an-ecstasy of fear and hate, she would fancy she saw Darcy’s pale face bending over hers in possessive triumph, or staring up at her with death in his glazing eyes, and she would wake, sobbing and scream- ing like a frightened child. Her own part in the adven- ture she especially dreaded to recall. The capability for passionate, murderous hate which she clearly possessed, alarmed and troubled her. While she shrank from dwell- ing upon this portion of her experience, she found herself making mental excuses for murderers and all such per- sons as were accused of crimes of violence. Eomichbooks (E(0)