The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 284: what you’re looking at

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

| pointed dagger were safe where she had deposited | them ;—and scarcely had she satisfied herself on this head, when she heard footsteps stealthily ascend- ing the staira. Her breath was suspended as she listened—her bosom remained upheaved for a few moments—and | the colour came and went upon her cheeks in varia- tions as rapid as the play of the moonlight upon the rippling surface of a lake. The dreaded instant was | at hand—and she experienced a sensation like a warning that this was a crisis in her destiny. Another moment—and the door opened ! ‘Then the breath came again—and the bosom fell —yes, and the heart too fell within. A dimmness over- spread her vision, and she staggered a few steps _ | backward, as the ominous figure, muffled in the | capacious cloak and with a large hat slouched over | the countenance which it completely shaded, crossed : the threshold and stood in her presence, But when G7 that figure, like some sinister being of another world, turned and closed the door behind—when, in fact, the belief struck to the soul of ar Countess minal,—the th ought sent through her entire frame such a thrill of horror that she was instan recalled, or rather startled to a full sense of her upon him an eagle glance—a glance which ps ty like a light- ning-flash through the shade in which the slouching brims and the high cloak-collar obscured his fea- tures;—and then a scream burst from ber lips as she saw that her visitor was not Philip Ramsey. Countess as ‘singular. “She | At the same moment the hat was flung off—the | borough. “I am betrayed! I am betrayed!” she murmured COL DOO (CO