The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

NED RUSSELL Oise sentiments, making them wiser and better and strengthening, if possible, the love which they bear for each other and which can know no ceasing. But let us not anticipate. Ned Russell conducted Kate Marshall up into the room where Don Christoval was waiting. In a few rapid words he had informed her, as they ascended the stairs, how that excellent-hearted nobleman had ar- rived in the very nick of time, and how in another instant it would have been too late. Kate threw herself at Don Christoval’s feet, she took his hand, she pressed it to her lips, she tried to speak, she could not; her emotions over- powered her. But he understood all that the grateful young woman meant to express; his tears showed that he thus comprehended her. They sat down to the banquet, and though they were but three, it was as joyous and happy a one as if there had been a hundred guests vowed to unalloyed hilarity. The sparkling champagne was drunk, and when the feast was over, Miss Marshall recited her adventures in full, from the moment she parted with Don Diego Chris- toval in Catalonia, until the instant the pardon was placed in her hands. Ned Russell shuddered when he thus heard of all that his beloved had gone through for his sake, — how she had so nearly lost her life in the forest, and what indignities she had suffered at the hands of the Minister of the Interior. But they all three commented lightly and gently upon these latter circumstances, for Kate had come harmless and unscathed through the fiery ordeal which had threatened to brand her chastity, and the minister had made as much atonement as a man could render for a grievous wrong, — a wrong which, however, was not, after all, irreparable. On the following day Don Diego Christoval, Ned Russell, and Kate Marshall — accompanied by a young English- woman who happened to be at the hotel, and was desirous to return to her native country — set out in a post-chaise on their way to France. The young woman was a nursery governess, who had come to Barcelona with an English family, but whom she had left in consequence of ill-usage. For delicacy’s sake, Kate was well pleased to have such a travelling companion added to the party; and the young female herself was rejoiced at the proposal to journey free of expense back to her own island. We need not follow CONnNIEDOOKS (E(©)