The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 222: what you’re looking at

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

192 THE COURT OF LONDON from the dreadful shock which he had experienced on finding that he was regarded as a monomaniac; and during the last two or three weeks of his incarceration, he had long and frequent interviews with his professional adviser. Still, however, was he weighed down by a deep sense of misfortune, degradation, and grief; his cheeks had become as pale as they were when he appeared to be perishing beneath the influence of the secret poison, and he felt as if all his vital powers were sapped and undermined beyond all earthly means of restoration. In such a condition was he, — physically attenuated and morally depressed, — when he was one morning informed by a turnkey that a prisoner who had been committed to Newgate on the previous evening anxiously and earnestly desired an interview with him. To the questions which Arthur put, the functionary responded that the prisoner alluded to was a certain Caroline Walters, — the young woman charged with the murder of Mrs. Lindley, the mid- wife. With the vividness and celerity of an inspiration did it strike Mr. Eaton that the object of the interview now solicited more or less concerned.his own special case; and, yielding at once to the influence of this presentiment, he desired the turnkey to bring the young woman to his cell. The regulations of the prison were far from being strict or severe in the times of which we are writing; and the liberal fee that Caroline had placed in the turnkey’s hands was the incentive to those good offices which he was thus exercising in her behalf. Accordingly, having obtained Arthur Eaton’s assent to the demand for an interview, the turnkey hastened to conduct Caroline into the young gentle- man’s presence. _ She was once more habited in the attire heli eon her sex; and the moment she entered Eaton’s cell, he was struck with the conviction that the mere girl who now stood before him was not likely to be the murderess of the old midwife. But a second and more scrutinizing look which he fixed upon her countenance enabled him to discover an expression of stern resolution in her lineaments; and the thought then arose within him that the strong mind of an experienced woman haply tenanted that form of youthful grace and of winning charms scarcely as yet matured. The turnkey intimated that he should return again in an Gomicsdoo “Ss m