The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 32: what you’re looking at

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

THE DRAMA OF A NIGHT 1d which Agatha lay, and she herself had her head completely enveloped in a thick black veil. But so feeble was the light that this precaution was scarcely necessary, for the room was already dark enough, and within the deeper obscurity of the couch, surrounded as it was by draperies, it would have been impossible for Maravelli, had. he chosen to raise his bandage, to distinguish the features of his patient with a view to future recognition. So dull, indeed, was that light that no mere transient glance furtively thrown around the room would enable the doctor to observe its appearance in such a way as to know it again; and we may here observe that when Mrs. Ranger quitted the chamber and crossed the passage for a moment to knock at Emma’s door opposite, she took the lamp with her. For be it understood that the object was to let Doctor Maravelli go forth from the villa that night with the impression that it was the Princess of Wales whom he had delivered of a child; hence the real absence of efficient precaution on the part of Mrs. Ranger when conducting him from Geneva to the villa. in plain terms, she wished him to know that it was the villa which he thus entered, but it must be obvious to the reader that she did not want him to know which room it was in the villa where his patient was confined. With these explanatory observations we resume the thread of our history. The moment Emma and Julia entered the chamber they beheld the doctor, with the black bandage over his eyes, seated by the side of the couch, holding Agatha’s arm in such a way that he could feel her pulse. Mrs. Ranger, on speeding back into the chamber after knocking at Emma’s door, had again deposited the lamp in the depth of the spacious hearth. Then, turning toward the two girls as they entered immediately after, she pointed significantly to an object uponachair. Emma and Julia instantaneously comprehended the truth, from the expression of her coun- tenance, for she had laid aside her cloak, bonnet, and veil, for the present. Then a few words conveyed in a hasty whisper ratified the idea which the girls had conceived. To be brief, Agatha had been delivered of a still-born child, and the tiny corpse was enveloped in a flannel ready to be | taken away. Indeed, the doctor was at this moment satisfy- ing himself, by feeling his patient’s pulse and putting to CORNICL@O eS) (C(O) im