The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

THE LONELY INN 19 pressed it to her bosom, and with a look full of eloquence, gave her to understand that she would lay down her own life sooner than injure her. She then extinguished the candle, and the chamber was enveloped in total darkness. Almost immediately afterward, steps were heard ascend- ing the lower flight of stairs, and by their uneven pace, and the sounds of a person staggering and stumbling about, Kate had no difficulty in judging that it was the drunken landlady. A door opened and shut on the landing below, — the same landing as that on which was situated the chamber whence Miss Marshall had been so mysteriously and omi- nously fetched away. ‘Then all was still again, and half an hour elapsed, during which Kate and Paquetta sat side by side upon the bed, the latter holding the hands of the former with a kind of firm, convulsing pressure in her own. By the way the girl breathed, by the frequent quick starts she made, as she doubtless fancied she heard some ominous sound, Miss Marshall conjectured that she was expecting something terrible to take place; and it may easily be supposed that her suspense was of the most poignant character, her feel- ings wrought up to a pitch that was scarcely tolerable. Indeed, the sensation she endured transcends all power of description. The hideous conviction of imminent danger was excruciating to her soul, and the torture thereof was still more exquisitely refined, rendered still more keen and soading, by the vagueness of her ideas as to what the precise nature of that danger could be. ‘That she was really in a nest of murderers, she could scarcely doubt; whether she should ever go forth thence alive, was involved in a horrible uncertainty; how the Spanish girl hoped to save her by the mere change of one room to another, she could not possibly imagine. We said that about half an hour passed from the moment that the ascent of the inebriate mistress of the hostelry was heard, — half an hour of complete silence through the house, but of torturing, rending, excruciating suspense for Kate Marshall, and likewise, as it appeared, for her Spanish com- panion. At the expiration of that interval, a faint sound, like the creaking of a footstep upon the stairs below, reached their ears. Kate’s breath was suspended, nor could she catch the breathing of the girl, which was evidently sus- pended also, but she felt the clasp of her companion’s fingers CONNIE DOOKS (S@)