The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 310: what you’re looking at

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

\THE PRINCESS — MRS. HUBBARD 293 gazed up at him with a stolid amazement that would have been ludicrous enough if he were in any humour to enjoy it. But it is not our intention to give at length and in detail all that passed between the baron and Mrs. Hubbard on the present occasion. Suffice it to say that he opened his business with her by the assurance that if she told him the truth in respect to certain matters that had transpired, he would hold her harmless, but if she acted with duplicity or false- hood, he would punish her most severely. Having already suspected from the very first moment Bergami began speak- ing that his visit was in some way connected with recent occurrences, she grew terribly alarmed, and fell upon her knees, declaring that whatever part she took in the affair of the memorable night three weeks back was through love of the princess, whose honour she wished to save. Thereupon Bergami bade her rise, made her resume her seat, and ordered her to tell him all she knew. She fell to crying and sobbing, and saying that if she had watched at her door at different times and seen him stealing along the passage at night, it was only because Mrs. Ranger had told her what was going on and had put it into her head thus to play the spy. | _ It was now Bergami’s turn to be astonished, for he knew full well that it was not himself who had been seen creeping stealthily along the passage in the manner described. On “questioning and cross-questioning Mrs. Hubbard, he found that she adhered to her story without contradiction or prevarication, and he now began to comprehend that the conspiracy must have had a phase of which he and Jocelyn Loftus had hitherto little dreamed. In plain terms, he saw that somebody must have personated him, in order the more effectually to work out the detestable purpose of involving the princess’s reputation in irretrievable ruin. That he had been so personated by some one was a sus- picion speedily~ confirmed by several little circumstances which he elicited from Mrs. Hubbard. For instance, Mrs. Ranger had never allowed her to peep forth long enough to satisty herself that the individual personating him really entered the room of the princess; and, moreover, the per- sonator was invariably dressed in a frock coat, never in an evening costume, although it was at night-time when the CORNICLOOKS im