The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

86 THE COURT OF LONDON thousand pounds which my father has given me, and I have brought them hither with me to show you, and thus convince you that I am telling the truth. a you have put out the lights, and I cannot conceive why — Ty this time the prince had collected his scattered and bewildered ideas in such a way that his passions had also flamed up once more. His imagination pictured to itself this lady as he had seen her when first entering the room, in that voluptuous abandonment of her person which had excited his desires to almost a frenzied degree, and through the deep darkness of the chamber did he now behold her with his mental vision. And he was close by her, he was seated against the couch on which she lay. If he stretched out his hand it would encounter a warm, plump arm or a heaving bosom, if he leaned forward he would inhale the fragrance of her breath, and a perfume of sensuousness conned to float around him, intoxicating his brain with its influence. He again took her hand, he pressed it to his lips; then he kissed her cheeks — But ah! a sudden and a half-stifled cry escaped her lips as she feels something cold touch her naked breast with a sensation as if it were a weapon about to inflict death from a murderous hand. It 1s the star which the prince had worn in the afternoon when holding a Privy Council, and which he had kept upon his coat. The lady’s fingers, instinctively seeking for the object that sent a thrill through her bosom, felt the star, and a terrible suspicion instantaneously flashed to her eae “Good God! who is it?’’ she exclaimed, but in a half- stifled, hysterical voice, as she pont elie pushed the prince away from her. “Fear not, dear lady, I am the prince,” was the quick, we might almost say, the galvanic response, for his Royal Highness felt that this was the crisis of the adventure. ‘The prince! ’’ repeated Mrs. Malpas, in a sort of suffo- cating tone. “Yes, the prince, who loves, who adores you,’’ resumed the royal voluptuary, with electric haste, as he once more seized her hand and pressed it to his heart. “ Yes, dearest lady, I am one who can appreciate your charms, who will love and cherish you, treat you with kindness, raise you to distinction, place you upon a pedestal amidst the beauties ,) ) EORMICLNOO KS (E(0)