The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 210: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XY THE PRISONER Ir was now the beginning of June and three months had elapsed since the dreadful murder of Mr. Pollard at Liver- pool. The spring assizes had passed without seeing Lettice Rodney brought to trial, but as there was to be a summer assize held, it was expected she would on this occasion appear before the jury. The reason for the postponement of the trial at the first-mentioned assizes was the serious illness of the prisoner. It was, however, rumoured that she was not altogether without friends, that eminent counsel had been engaged in her behalf, and that Sir William Stanley, a wealthy baronet residing in the neighbourhood, and who was in the commission of the peace, had exhibited much interest in her behalf. Still the general impression appeared to be that she was guilty, — the details of the circumstantial evidence telling so fearfully against her. Sir William Stanley, however, seemed to be an exception to the rule, and so far as his friends could judge from the few words he let drop on the subject, and the peculiarity of his look when it was broached in his presence, it was believed that he at least was not so strongly impressed by that evidence, even if he did not go so far as to imagine her completely innocent. Lettice Rodney had indeed been seriously ill. The terrible accusation which pressed against her, the weight of the testimony upon which she was committed, had almost completely crushed her. If really guilty of the crime, she would have perhaps borne herself more courageously than she did when, being conscious of her innocence, she thus lay under an imputation of the blackest turpitude. After her committal for trial, she was for many weeks in a state bor- dering upon dissolution, sometimes raving in the delirium 193 | COnnicooolkKks (C(O)