The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 256: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XxX THE VILLA We must now return to the villa near the Regent’s Park, — that villa which was the home of William and Angela Deveril, and at which Madge Somers still lay upon the bed of illness. The reader has already learned how she experi- enced a most serious relapse in consequence of her endeavour to commit to a slate those words which she could not speak with the tongue, but to which she was so impatient to give utterance. Some weeks had now elapsed since that period when she did succeed in committing to the slate this brief and unfinished sentence: ‘“‘ William Deveril is the s—” During that interval her position had been most dangerous, and were it not for the assiduous ministrations of the beaute- ous Angela, she must have succumbed. The medical man who was in attendance upon her frequently declared that to Miss Deveril’s kind attentions — even more than to his own skill — was the invalid indebted for the prolongation ‘of her life, and that to the same cause she would chiefly owe her recovery, should it eventually take place. Within the last few days previous to the date to which our narrative has been brought, the medical attendant had been enabled to predict with confidence that she would recover; but still, as Lord Harold had ascertained, she lay prostrate and powerless, speechless, and so weak as scarcely to be able to acknowledge by signs the attentions she received from Miss Deveril. This young lady had not absented her- self from the villa, save for an hour’s daily walk with her brother, ever since that brief visit which they paid together to Edenbridge Park, and when Francis Paton avowed his love. But on several occasions Frank had journeyed up from Kent to see his betrothed; and frequent was the | 289 CONnNICOOOKS (E(©)