The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 362: what you’re looking at

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

THE LADY’S - MAID 345. “ It was between nine and ten o’clock in the evening, in the month of June, exactly five years ago, that, after ram- bling about Paris the whole day in astate of mind more easily imagined than depicted, | was bending my way toward one of the bridges —I will not repeat with what intention — when I suddenly heard myself called by name. I looked up, and beheld before me, by the light streaming from a shop- window, a tall, good-looking, middle-aged gentleman, whom by his very appearance it was easy to recognize as an English- man. He said, ‘ I presume that I am not wrong in addressing you as the Count de Villebelle?’ I replied that my father had for some time been dead, and that I was now the Marquis of Villebelle, and in the bitterness of my spirit I added some- thing to the effect that the empty title of marquis was every- thing I possessed in the world. ‘ Ah!’ ejaculated the Eng- lishman, ‘is it so? I was about to solicit your advice on a certain point, but it may be that in this wrecked condition of your fortunes you yourself will serve my purpose.’ These last words he had muttered in a musing tone, but audibly enough for me to catch them. There was something in them which appeared to shed a gleam of hope on the desolate darkness of my mind, and as a drowning man grasps at a straw, did I clutch at what the Englishman had just said. ‘He invited me to follow him into an adjacent wine-shop, where he ordered a private room and refreshments to be served up. We sat down together, and the Englishman questioned me most minutely respecting my circumstances. There appeared to be a certain frankness about him which inspired me with confidence, and, moreover, it was so neces- sary for me to hope, — 1 who had been but a few minutes before environed by the darkness of despair. I explained to the Englishman my precise position, not even withholding the fact that at the very instant I had encountered him I was contemplating — but of that no matter. I will not name the horrid thing again. Suffice it to say that he listened with the deepest attention and interest to all I told him, and when he had done questioning me, I asked him who he was and how he had happened to know me. He replied that he had met me in company with my father, some four or five years back, in England, when I was a youth; but though methought that his countenance was not wholly unfamiliar, yet I could not recollect where I had seen him before. He COnnicooolkKks (CO)