The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 211: what you’re looking at

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

194 REYNOLDS’ WORKS of fever, at others sinking into a torpor so profound that it appeared as if it were the highroad leading to the portals of death’s mansion. She was lodged during this severe illness in the infirmary of the gaol, and every attention was shown her by the official authorities and the medical men. To a certain extent this humane treatment would have been displayed toward her without the prompting of any external influence, and notwithstanding the fearful crime with which she was charged, but those attentions had been perhaps all the more indulgent on account of the intervention of Sir William Stanley on the young woman’s hehalf. The baronet nevertheless sufiered it to be understood, for his own charac- ter’s sake, that he had no previous acquaintance with Lettice Rodney, and that he was actuated by mere motives of hu- manity, — an averment which was fully supported by his reputation for the highest honour and integrity. We should observe that Sir William Stanley was a man of about sixty; all the early part of his life had peen passed in India, where he had amassed a considerable fortune, and by the services rendered to the government in a variety of ways had ob- tained the title of baronet. He was a widower, but had one son, — a young man of about four and twenty, and who was a captain in a cavalry regiment. We must further ob- serve that circumstances had induced Sir William Stanley to revisit India some three years previous to the date of which we are now writing, and that he had only returned to England about a twelve-month back. It was the first week in June, and in a chamber com- municating with the female infirmary of the Liverpool gaol Lettice Rodney sat. How changed was her appearance from that glory and bloom of beauty which had invested her ere she found herself charged with the tremendous crime of murder. But terrible are the ravages which those joint scourges — care and illness — are enabled to effect upon the human form, and the most blighting influence of the former as well as the fiercest rage of the latter had wreaked themselves upon the unfortunate Lettice Rodney. Her shape, once so voluptuous in its superb proportions, had become emaciated; her cheeks, once so plump and with the roseate bloom of health upon them, had grown sunken and deadly pale; her eyes, deep in their cavernous orbits, had lost their fire, and the ashy lips received an added COMNIELOO)<S5 EC) m