The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 283: what you’re looking at

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

266 REYNOLDS’ WORKS might be. We should observe that this maid was not Lucilla, the one who had been so frightened by the incursion of Chiffin and Lord Harold Staunton into the room which she had appropriated to herself at Saxondale Castle during the absence of her mistress, for her ladyship had left Lucilla behind in Lincolnshire, inasmuch as she had foreseen that on returning to London she would have to receive visits from Lord Harold, and she of course did not wish the young nobleman to stand the chance of encountering that maid, in whose presence he could not do otherwise than look partic- ularly foolish. | When left alone in her dressing-room, while her dependent hastened down to ascertain who had knocked and rung in so peremptory a manner, Lady Saxondale said to herself, ‘““ Some new crisis 1s now at hand,”’ and as she glanced at the mirror opposite to which she was standing, she saw that her countenance was of a dead pallor. Then, clasping her hands in a paroxysm of mental anguish, she bitterly, bitterly re- pented having ever entered upon a career of crime. In that dread moment she would have given worlds to recall the past. But she was not a woman to remain long thus over- powered by her terrors; she felt the necessity of exerting all her strength of mind to meet whatsoever danger might now be menacing her, and to encounter with fortitude what- soever new emergency might have arisen. Feeling convinced that the visitor must be either Lord Harold, or else some messenger from him, she threw on a morning wrapper, and scarcely had she done this when the maid returned to the room with the expected intimation. For it was as she had foreseen: Lord Harold Staunton craved an immediate audience of her ladyship on most particular business. “You need not wait up for me,”’ said Lady Saxondale to the maid; and having given this injunction, she descended to the parlour into which the footman who answered the front door had conducted Lord Harold. The moment her ladyship entered, she perceived by the young nobleman’s countenance that the plot had failed, for he was very much excited and had a bewildered look. “You have not succeeded, Harold?’’ said her ladyship, in a quick, trembling voice. ‘“ No, everything has miscarried, and yet I know not how,” he replied, as he threw himself upon a sofa, much exhausted, CONNIE OO KS (E(0)