The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 390: what you’re looking at

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

360 THE COURT OF LONDON not criminal, poor suffering girl, you are not guilty, my well- beloved sister! In ignorance you loved me, in unconscious- ness of the secret tie which bound us together you gave me your heart. Nature’s whisperings were not loud enough to carry an efficient warning to our souls, and therefore thou canst not blame thyself.’ “ Would to God that I could reason in the same manner! ”’ cried the princess. Then, instantly checking the sudden impetuosity to which she had for a moment given way, and recovering her self-possession, she said, ‘‘ There is a man near yonder trees who appears to be watching us.” ‘““ No, it cannot be,” returned the baronet. ‘‘ Wherefore should he watch us? And who could have set a spy upon our actions? But we will walk leisurely that way and assure © ourselves upon the point.”’ ‘A vague and terrible presentiment of evil has just come over me,” said the princess, and Sir Richard felt her hand tremble as it rested lightly upon his arm. “Tis because your nerves are unstrung, your energies so cruelly shaken,”’ he remarked, as he led her gently along; and yet the words which she had last uttered infused a vague and unknown terror into his own soul, as if he had caught the infection of that evil presentiment which the princess already experienced. ‘“ That man is assuredly watching us,”’ she said, in a tone of increasing alarm. ‘“ Let us retrace our way.” “On the contrary,” observed Sir Richard Stamford, ‘“‘ if he be really espying our movements, we must know what he is and who has employed him. I could not bear the thought of leaving England if it were to abandon you, Amelia, to any danger. Come, take courage, we are close by the knot of trees where he is stationed — ”’ ‘‘ Ah! now he issues forth from his hiding-place,’’ said the princess, “‘ and he seems to take no notice of us. I was foolish to give way to such idle terrors, but when the mind is labouring under the influence of a deep despondency it converts the most trivial incidents into a cause of alarm.”’ Sir Richard Stamford made no reply to this observation, because he and the princess were now within a few yards of the individual whose presence had filled them with such sinister apprehensions. The man, having emerged from behind the clump of trees, was apparently gazing with in- CONNKE NOOO KS m