The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 300: what you’re looking at

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

280 REYNOLDS’ WORKS passed without Adolphus and Ethel being left alone together even for a single instant. We must observe, for the better comprehension of what is to follow, that the Countess of Lascelles still slept apart from her husband, and though the earl was becoming im- patient of this separation of chambers, he had not as yet insisted that it should cease. Night came; silence prevailed throughout the palatial mansion of the Earl of Lascelles. Were all sleeping there? Who can say? When the world retire to rest in the evening they know not what may transpire during the many hours of darkness ere they awaken to the light again. And during those hours what deeds of mystery and horror are often perpetrated. Wherefore to the timid-minded is night more or less terrible, even though their own consciences be without reproach? It is because they know that crime chooses the hour of darkness wherein to achieve its purpose; they know that guilt shrouds itself beneath that sombre veil when creeping stealthily along its path of iniquity. They know that if their intelligence can divest night of its superstitious terrors, yet that nevertheless real objects of horror are stalking abroad, and that the votaries of crime constitute frightful shapes. They know that murder and burglary and violence of every description are fearfully personified during the hours of darkness, and that the breeze which sighs or that the wind which howls around their dwellings may be wafting the last low moan or else the loud cry of the murdered victim’s agony. Yes, night has its terrors; it is peopled with fearful shapes, and the dark passions of man accomplish all this. The night passed, and morning dawned upon the palatial mansion of the Earl of Lascelles. It was a beautiful day to which that night had thus given birth; the beams of the Orient sun shone upon the emerald verdure of the gardens, and made the fruitage glow as if gems were appended to every bough. The birds were carolling in the trees; window after window on the domestics’ story was opened to admit the breeze of morn, as the occupants of those rooms rose from their couches to apparel themselves for the work of another day. And now a little later, as eight o’clock ap- proached, the casements of other chambers were opened, — Isabella’s here, that of Adolphus there and Ethel’s on the ground floor. The draperies fluttered gently to that softly CORNICLOOOLKS