The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 364: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XXXII THE LAST ACT OF THE NIGHT’S TRAGEDY Ir is here necessary to remind the reader that when Bergami had absented himself from the dinner-table at the villa, under pretence of dining with a friend, it was for the purpose of hastening to Doctor Maravelli’s house and making Jocelyn Loftus acquainted with all that had taken place during the few hours since they parted in the middle of the day. Thus Bergami had informed our hero of all the strange and startling revelations which he had wrung from Mrs. Hubbard, and all that had taken place between him- self and the three sisters on the shore of the lake. He had also explained to Loftus, word for word, what he had said and done when left alone with Emma Owen, and ere they parted it was then agreed that Loftus should repair to the villa during the night, immediately after his interview should have taken place with the three young ladies at Doctor Maravelli’s. It was in pursuance of this understanding with Bergami that Jocelyn Loftus was now wending his way from the physician’s house toward the villa, and while the three sisters were returning thither by the most direct route, our hero was taking the more circuitous path across the field. But then, as he proceeded at a much quicker pace than the Misses Owen, he arrived at the point of destination before them. On reaching the private door in the garden wall, he knocked three times, and it was immediately opened by Bergami, who had been there awaiting his coming for the last half-hour. In a few hurried words Jocelyn related to the royal equerry all the dreadful things that had occurred, and how the drama of the night had episodically merged 347 CORNICLOOL <S) (C(O) mM