The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 145: what you’re looking at

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

SCENES IN THE DANE JOHN. 127 and Bernard Audley was walking to and fro in the Dane John. His thoughts were fixed absorbedly upon the image of Louisa Stanley. He had seen her an hour previously entering a shop in Canterbury, and accompanied by the young lady whom on former occasions he had observed in her society, and whom indeed he had accidentally learned to be a Miss Owen. This young lady was now in deep mourning, and her countenance wore a look of the profoundest melan- choly. But few and transient were the thoughts which the minor canon bestowed upon her; whereas, on the other hand, deeper and more gloating than ever was the concen- tration of all his interest on the image of Louisa Stanley. He had not ventured to accost her, he had even kept at a distance; but the brief view which he had obtained of her graceful form, with the elegant feet and ankles tripping glancingly over the threshold of the shop which he saw her enter, had at once fired his imagination to a maddening degree. He had watched till she and her companion came forth again. At a distance, and unperceived by them, had he followed as they retraced their way back to the cottage, which they never left for more than an hour or two at a time, and having kept them in sight until they had traversed the Dane John in their walk homeward, he had remained there, not daring to follow them any farther. But why dare he not? It was because the unhappy man felt himself irresistibly impelled to draw nearer and nearer to the two young ladies, and he knew that if he continued to yield to this impulse he should be urged to overtake them altogether and address himself to Louisa, despite the many reasons which warned him against such a course. For the moment, then, he had thus far resisted the temptation, thus far wrestled against the power that was impelling him on. But the effort was fearful, and the fury of the inward fire was fanned rather than mitigated. | “That girl unconsciously and innocently exercises an empire over me which will yet drive me to folly and to crime!’”’ It was thus he mused within himself, and his countenance was marked with the strong lines of a raging passion, so that, handsome though it were, it looked dark, sinister, and repulsive to a degree at this moment. ‘‘ Oh, to possess her, oh, for one hour of her love, and I would give ten years of my life. I cannot live thus. It seems written in the (C(O) nn) GDoOo <Si nin