The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 398: what you’re looking at

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

THE SNAKE WITH THE LOVELY SKIN 367 tinued the nobleman, “‘ [ found a pretext for retiring to the library; and it cannot possibly fail to strike him how easy it was for me to slip up to his own bedchamber and conceal in the drawer that blade which I had previously and pur- posely broken off from the knife. Then, if this proceeding on my part be suspected, it will require no ghost to suggest that the same hand which dropped the blade into the drawer also scratched the initials ‘ W. D.’ upon the handle of the weapon — ”’ ‘“ Really, you are allowing your terrors to travel too fast and much too far, Walter,’’ exclaimed Lady Holderness, rising from her seat. ‘‘ You are pusillanimous to a degree —”’ At this moment a domestic entered the apartment to announce that ‘‘ a man who was waiting in the hall desired to speak immediately to Lord and Lady Holderness.” “Show him up into this room,” said Fernanda, without losing a tittle of her self-possession or even changing col- our. The domestic withdrew, and Lady Holderness, turning toward her husband, saw that he was white as a sheet and trembling from head to foot. “Go into that room, Walter,” she said, in an imperious tone, as if speaking to a child; and as she pushed him into an adjoining apartment, with which there was a communi- cation by means of folding doors, she observed, “‘ If any danger be menacing us, we shall know how to act; but if @ mere suspicion be alone existing against us, your looks would confirm it.” : Then, having shut the door upon her husband, who was already half-dead with terror, she hastened to the window and glanced into the square. An ill-looking man was stationed opposite the house, another was loitering at a short distance, and a third was leaning against a lamp-post a little farther off still. Fernanda turned away from the window with a fearful tightening of the heart-strings and with a hideous pang shooting through her brain; for she felt convinced that her own hopes of security and triumph were destroyed and that her husband’s presentient terrors were but too well founded. It was, however, with a strong and almost incredible effort ; g that this woman, so daring in crime and so courageous in the presence of danger, recovered her self-possession as she GomilGyaooks (SO)