The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

36 REYNOLDS’ WORKS is dearer than my own! I have endured and suffered much, I have journeyed day and night, I have deemed no fatigue too great, no peril too menacing, to be encountered in the prosecution of my object. In the midst of a forest my life was within a hair’s breadth of succumbing to the murderous designs of assassins.”’ “Ah, I recollect,” exclaimed the minister. ‘‘ The papers have been forwarded to me, and methought when I ere now read your name in the Marquis of Villebelle’s letter it was not altogether unfamiliar. Yes, I have perused those official documents, sent by the alcalde of the town where the in- vestigation took place, and from the depositions it is indeed but too clear that you experienced a very narrow escape. But you must love this Edward Russell very much that you have dared such fatigues and so many dangers on his behalf?”’ ‘Oh, I have endured more than has come to your Excel- lency’s knowledge,” cried Kate, thus alluding to her arrest by the Catalan banditti; but instantaneously recollecting that this was an episode to which, for Count Christoval’s sake, she ought not even to have glanced, she quickly added, “But no matter, sir. All that I have undergone will be esteemed light indeed if the result should prove favourable to my object. Oh, let me not implore your Excellency in vain! ”’ The young woman, full of acute suspense, and not knowing what to hope at the hands of this man who gazed upon her in a way that filled her heart with vague uneasiness, spoke in vehement and impassioned accents, while the tears continued to trace their crystal pathway down her cheeks. ‘The minister still surveyed her with an attention which might be merely replete with compassionate interest, but which nevertheless had a certain expression of libertine ardour, and this expres- sion it was that caused the trouble which was racking the afflicted applicant. ‘“ You are too intelligent, Miss Marshall,’’ he said, “ not to comprehend that this offender — to use no harsher term — has rendered himself obnoxious to the severest criminal laws of the country. I am aware it was argued in his defence that no life was taken by his special hand, but he was the leader of a party committing an unlawful act, and the weapons of his followers spilt the blood of Spanish subjects. Were he a Spaniard himself, were he possessed of high interest and in- CONNIE OO KS (E(0) m