The Widowed Bride — page 218: what you’re looking at

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

THE WIDOWED BRIDE. 209 . polite phrase, as I take it,” he added, sneeringly, ‘‘for mur- der! And he told the countess that he regarded it as her bounden duty to divulge the monstrous conspiracy, of which he had become aware that night for the first time, to the earl. My Lady Glenhampton denied nothing—she was wise enough to perceive that no falsehood or double-dealing with facts could avail her at that moment—but she tried to drag him also in the foul plot. She offered him reward, bribes —I can scarcely remember what—to continue to conceal the — story into which he had gained an insight through the vol- untary confession of the old man, a confession all of whose details I was not so fortunate as to hear. But Hunsworth was one of those fools whom the world calls ‘men of honor,’ and he refused every tempting prospect and golden bribe. - And then she shifted her ground and begged fortime. She would herself tell her husband all; the children should be restored to their rights, and the errors of the past be amply atoned for—only he must let her choose her own time. At all events, the earl should know all the next morning at far- thest; and to this compromise Hunsworth reluctantly con- sented. She thanked him with the utmest fervor for his for- bearance—and they parted. She turned away; he stood for a moment lighting his’ cigar under the very boughs of the tree behind which I crouched—and in that instant a shadow crept between me and the starlight—Lady Glenhampton’s shadow—and I saw the white, sheeny gleam of a blade in the air, I heard the bubbling cry of the murdered man, and saw him fall among the daisies and the long ferns, which closed above him as if to hide the corpse from sight. I never beheld a thing more instantaneously done; he must have died as he fell. And then she stooped above him and seemed to be searching or feeling for something, probably to see if life was quite extinct, for it is scarcely well to leave such a job as that half done. Ay, Lord Glenhampton, you may well groan and clasp your hands over your eyes, but I tell you that I looked upon this with my own eyes.” ‘But why—why——” gasped the wretched earl, without taking his hands from his eyes. “Why have I kept silent all these years? Do you suppose I would make town talk of a secret that was worth to me a golden guinea for every hour of silence? No, Lord Glen- hampton, I was no such unfledged fool as that. Your countess has made it well worth my while, up to this time, 4] Eomicbooks:. co