The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 294: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XXXI A NIGHT WITH A MURDERED MAN THE lamp which stood upon the table immediately began to grow dim, as if a mist were perceptibly rising around it. Steadily did that dimness increase every moment, until the light was subdued down into the faint glimmer of a distant star, and then it expired altogether, leaving the chamber involved in the blackest darkness. And upon the floor the milliner was stretched, under the influence of an irresistible rigidity which retained her spell- bound from the hair of her head to the soles of her feet. An appalling consternation was upon her, and yet she could not move a muscle nor give vent to a sound. Her mouth was fast closed as with lockjaw; and the same dreadful species of tetanus held all her limbs in its iron prisonage, leaving to every fibre and tendon the acuteness of feeling and to every sense its peculiar faculty, but suspending all motion, and reducing the woman to the condition of an animated statue. Yes, but a statue animated with a vitality as fresh and a perception as vivid as if not a single function nor physical power were held in abeyance; and thus everything which might happen to the miserable being while in this state was certain to be characterized by a tremendous aggravation of concomitant feeling. Complete and effectual as was the physical restraint, so acute and keen was the moral perception; and the moment Mrs. Brace became aware that she was reduced to this awful position, she likewise found herself enveloped in a darkness so pitchy that it seemed to be a black mist filling the atmosphere with its stifling density. All that had passed during the earlier portion of the night she recollected well; and slowly, nay, even methodically, did she revolve in her memory the various incidents which 260 (G0) mG 6)(0)©)