Beautiful Rienzi; or, The secret vendetta — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

86 BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. any light on her share in the events which led to Cecil Beaumont’s violent death, it behooved my father to mortify the weakness of his flesh, and display the same metal as that model of justice, who condemned his own son to death, and enjoyed the spectacle. — But my father was no Brutus; and had he been, I fear his kind soul would have been severely hampered by my out- cries against this glutting of the sword of justice. Therefore, in our mutual tender-heartedness, we deter- mined as far and as long as circumstances would permit to keep the proscribed individual concealed in her own home, from the too hungry teeth of the law until she could gather up a measure of strength to survive its shaking. We adjured our few servants to keep discreet silence on the subject of her return; and let me say here for the honor of American reticence and fidelity, that as far as I could judge, they never betrayed the confidence we reposed in them. We had her apartment exclusively on the third story, and it consisted of her own bedroom and dressing-room, which were adjoining each other, and quite out of the way of casual visitors. These rooms were guardedly locked, and Sophie and I attended to her wants exclusively. We thus hoped to be permitted to nurse our poor en- feebled girl for a time unharassed by the painful and harrow- ing steps which would inevitably be taken, as soon as she should be discovered by Miss Meredith’s detectives. For we found that-she was shattered in health and in spirits to a pitiable degree. Her whole frame seemed to have been crushed by some jarring shock; her constitution was almost destroyed; and her nerves were so painfully weak that the slightest incident was sufficient to startle her almost into a frenzy of terror. But while I proudly watched over my invalid sister, others had not been idle. Upon my father repairing on the following day to Jersey City to keep the appointment he had made with Dr. Oaks, for the purpose of forcing the truth out of him concerning the person who had ‘put Isolina into his charge, hey, prestc! the scene was changed as completely as a juggler’s trick. The large brick house was: silent and empty; the brass knocker woke dismal echoes when he plied it; a large pla- card in the window announced that ‘‘ This house to let,” COMICOOO S (©)