The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 355: what you’re looking at

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

338 THE COURT OF LONDON ‘will you consent to cast your eyes upon the remains of the infant whereof | am speaking, and all three swear in the presence of the corpse that, had it lived, it would not have been able to-assert the claims of nature upon either of you three sisters? ”’ “We are prepared thus to swear,’ was Agatha’s reply, delivered in a voice so unnaturally firm and with a look so strangely resolute that it seemed as if such preterhuman calmness could only be the prelude to a frightful reaction. “Come, then,’’ said Loftus, ‘‘ the sooner the ordeal is over the better. Doctor, take one of the candles and lead on.”’ Thus speaking, the young man opened the dining-room door, and made way for Maravelli to pass out. He then beckoned the three sisters to follow, and this they did with a degree of firmness which amazed him, although so white were their countenances that they looked like moving corpses. | On issuing into the hall, Loftus hastened to unlock the door of the dissecting-room, and still bidding Maravelli lead the way, he stood aside to see the three sisters enter before him. And they did enter, but the moment they crossed the threshold, and when the sickly odour of the dead struck upon their senses, they shuddered visibly, stopped short, and suddenly turned toward each other, as if all their unnatural courage were now giving way at the supreme moment, and they were about to cling to one another for support. But again was Emma’s courage the first to revive, and also to pour its inspiration into the souls of her sisters, for she, having all that Bergami had said uppermost in her mind, was animated with a confidence which they had not the same motive for possessing. They therefore all three once again armed themselves with the utmost of their fortitude, and in this manner did they advance into the room. Maravelli stood by, holding the light, and Jocelyn Loftus, entering immediately behind the girls, closed the door. But, ah! what pen can depict the horror that now seized upon those unfortunate young women? Confusion and dismay, anguish and wonderment. While Agatha’s eyes remained riveted upon the corpse of her child, the looks of her sisters had been thrown upon those other two dead ) EONMICLOIOO KS (E(0) =}