The Widowed Bride — page 217: what you’re looking at

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

208 _ ‘THE WIDOWED BRIDE. without attracting the attention of any one else in the apart- ment, I could easily hand it to her unseen, standing, as I did, on the marble terrace without. She read the note, and crumpled it up in her fingers. J asked her if there was any — answer. “There is none,’ she answered. As it happens, I am skilled at reading faces, and I saw in hers that the billet contained something of no ordinary nature. ‘'Ihat there was some secret between my master and Lady Glenhampton I was quite certain, and as secrets are useful things to men of my profession, I determined to fathom the matter to its very bottom. Almost immediately on my re-— turn Mr. Hunsworth went out, and I followed him.” “You did not tell all this on the occasion of the coroner’s inquest in this castle,” interrupted Lord Glenhampton. Poynings smiled mockingly. “T am quite aware of it, my lord earl. It was not my policy at that time to impart all that I knew. As I was say- ing,” he added, aftera moment’s pause, ‘‘Il followed him into the dell beside the deer park. He waited there some time, so did I, behind the gnarled trunk of the great beach tree, which, if your lordship remembers, stands near the southern angle of the dell—but both of our vigils were re- wardedin time. ‘l'‘he Countess of Glenhampton, with her evening dress completely enveloped under a black cloak, whose hood also covered her head, except in one place, where I could see the Glenhampton diamonds flash out in the star- light, came over the dewy grass, moving quick and light, and with her face deadly pale. JI was where I could hear their voices distinctly; you can imagine how earnestly I lis- tened for every accent. Ay, I see your lordship’s lip curl. Eavesdropping is not the action of an honorable man, I grant you, but we who have not the good fortune to be born in purple and fine linen must work our way up the ladder of life as best we may. And I was rewarded for not being - over-scrupulous by the tidings that I heard. Hunsworth told the countess, your wife’—Poynings spoke. slowly, giving emphasis to every word separately and distinctly as it passed his lips—‘‘that he had that night discovered the existence of the twin daughters of the house of Glenhampton, supposed _ to have been dead for more than seven years—that at that moment they were in the ruined lodge, passing as the grand- children of old Jason Garfield, who, as I understood it, — had been liberally rewarded to put them out of the way—a = comicbooks.com ~