The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 166: what you’re looking at

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

THE PURSUER AND THE FUGITIVES 149 Edmund gazed upon his mother with a sort of stupid astonishment. He really and truly thought for a moment she was suddenly going mad. The pallor of her countenance was absolutely ghastly, her eyes had a fixed and sinister stare, her ashy lips were quivering, she seemed as if she trembled all over with a glacial chill. In this fearful aspect which she wore, there was something too terribly real, too awfully genuine, not to smite him with the conviction that so far from being mad, she was keenly and poignantly intelligent to the imminence of some dreadful danger; and eatching the infection of her own dire alarm, losing for the moment, in the bewilderment of his senses, the full meaning of the words which she had just addressed to him, he said, ‘‘ Good God! mother, what is it? ”’ “Be calm, Edmund, be calm — be composed,’’ was the quick response she gave in a deep, hollow voice, while her fingers closed rigidly upon his arm, as if that arm were grasped with claws of iron. ‘‘ Be calm, I say. Not a word to Adelaide. Not a word, I conjure you! Listen, Edmund, dear Edmund! do me this service; and I will never molest you more. Pray, pray forgive me for the past. And now come, let us go down together. You will recognize some- thing, — for God’s sake appear not to recognize it! ”’ Lord Saxondale could not give utterance to a syllable. He was still half-bewildered and half-astounded by this awful change which had suddenly come over her ladyship, and by those words to which she had given such rapid and excited utterance, though in so hollow and subdued a tone. He proceeded down the stairs mechanically. At the bottom she caught him by the arm again, and said, hurriedly, — ‘““ Adelaide is coming. Nota word. Remember my promise. I swear to fulfil it! ”’ Kdmund’s wife, on a second thought, had conceived that there must be something more in all this than she had at first imagined, and she accordingly decided upon following her husband and mother-in-law down the stairs. The sounds of her footsteps had thus reached Lady Saxondale’s ears, and made her breathe this last adjuration, full of vehement entreaty, though low in utterance, in the ear of her son. Almost immediately afterward they were overtaken by Adelaide, who exclaimed, ‘‘ Wherefore all this excitement? ”’ “We do not know. We are going to see,’’ responded COnNIEDOOlKS (FO)