The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

EXPLANATIONS 27 the window of her room, tying the bedclothes together, and letting them hang forth, to confirm the impression that she had escaped, but a second thought convinced me that this stratagem would defeat itself, inasmuch as there was a sav- age dog in the back premises that would have torn her to pieces if she had really sought to fly in that direction. I therefore abandoned that idea. When Miss Marshall and I were seated together in my own chamber, we heard the landlady scramble up the staircase to the first landing, and methought that she entered her own room, which was next to the one which Miss Marshall had so recently quitted. Half an hour afterward we again heard footsteps upon the stairs. Then I knew the crisis to be at hand, or at least I fancied that my master would steal into the room, to find no one there. My emotions may be conceived when to my ears were borne the subdued and stifling sounds which but too intelligibly proclaimed that murder’s work was being done. I comprehended it all: the miserable wretch was killing his own wife! For an instant I was on the point of shrieking out, of rushing to the door, of tearing it open, and at all risks of raising an alarm. But then ‘to my mind flashed the conviction that such a course on my part would be followed by the murder of Miss Marshall and myself. Oh, it was terrible to be thus compelled to remain silent and quiet while a human life was being taken, but there was no alternative. Life is dear to me. I had vowed also to do my best to save Miss Marshall, and shocking though it were to adopt such a course, it was ab- solutely necessary to suffer one life to be smothered away, rather than ensure the certain taking of two, and one of these two my own. The wild cry which burst from the landlord’s lips bore to my ears the conviction that he had just then discovered his horrible mistake; and while that cry was yet ringing through the house, the body of gendarmes galloped up to the door. Not an instant did I lose in speaking to them from the window, and imploring succour, as murder was being done beneath that roof; and it must have been Providence itself who sent them at that critical moment to bait their horses at the inn, for it was the means of ensuring our safety and uprooting a nest of assassins.”’ But little more remains to be told in order to make the CONNIE DOOKS (EO)