The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 116: what you’re looking at

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

THE STRONG ROOM ahs upon the prisoner, calling her a murderess, and she fainted. The dagger belonged to my master; he was afraid of thieves and kept it for his defence. When sitting in that room at night-time, he generally laid it on the table near him, so that I have no doubt the prisoner snatched it up and used it suddenly.’’ While Mrs. Webber was making this deposition, Lettice Rodney passed through all the extremes of feeling of which the human heart is susceptible, —at one time crushed > down by the weight of fearful consternation, at another giving vent to the most passionate declarations of innocence, as well as of accusations against Mrs. Webber herself; now 1m- ploring Heaven to interfere in her behalf, then appealing to the justice of man; now confessing herself to be guilty of the intended cheat, but repudiating with abhorence the eraver and blacker charge; then bursting forth into a parox- ysm of the wildest anguish, and then sinking down into a numbed stupor, until suddenly starting up again in a fresh frenzy of words, looks, and gesticulations. When asked, with the usual caution, whether Lettice had anything to say in her defence, she spoke with so much in- coherence that it was scarcely possible to unravel her words and obtain therefrom a continuous narrative. The magis- trate was, however, patient, and after much trouble her story was elicited. She told how she had fallen in with Mrs. Rayner, and explained the circumstances under which she was led to undertake the imposture. She told likewise how she had discovered the murder, and seen Mrs. Webber with the two men, but no one believed this portion of her tale. The purse had been found upon her, and then, too, she had her bonnet and shawl on when captured, which seemed to corroborate Mrs. Webber’s account of a protracted inter- view with the old man; while the unfortunate young woman’s own explanation of an intended flight from the house was regarded merely as an excuse to account for the circumstance of her being thus dressed in all the apparel in which she had first arrived at the dwelling. The magistrate had but one duty to perform, one course to pursue, and this was to commit Lettice Rodney for trial at the next assizes, on the charge of murdering Anthony Pollard. CORnNIEOOKS (FO)