The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

58 REYNOLDS’ WORKS he was excited to a more than ordinary degree by her hand- some countenance and her fine shape; he longed to clasp her in his arms, yearned with avidity to make her his own. Therefore it was without any further hesitation that he yielded to what he regarded as a mere precaution on her part, and seating himself at the desk, he penned in the Knelish language precisely such a document as she had suggested, appending his signature, and affixing the min- isterial seal of the Home Department. “One single embrace ere you leave me, Miss Marshall,” he said as he presented the paper, and he made a movement to suit the action to the word. “No, sir, not now,’’ she emphatically exclaimed, retreat- ing a couple of paces. ‘‘ J am no brazen-face that can thus calmly and deliberately surrender myself to the arms of a stranger. Understand me well, sir,’’ she continued, again with averted countenance, and with that crimsoning of the cheeks which showed how revolting it was unto the sensitive delicacy of her feelings to be compelled thus to argue and expatiate upon such a subject, ‘‘ understand me well, sir. I am pure and chaste; it is no meretricious female whom you are thus wooing by coercion instead of by sentiment, and again do I repeat that in the broad daylight, with the sun shining, I cannot look you in the face and think of all that is to be consummated. This night, punctually as the clocks at Madrid proclaim the hour of ten, shall I keep the appointment which has been made.”’ With these words Kate Marshall, having secured the document in her bosom, moved toward the door, and the Minister of the Interior sought not to detain her, sought not even so much as to touch her hand again. That door closed behind her, and when he was once more alone he gloated over the idea that within a few hours thence the superb creature who had just quitted his presence would be his own, abandoned completely unto him, clasped in his arms. Kate returned to the hotel, and in the course of the after- noon, a lady, wearing the graceful Spanish mantilla, which completely concealed her countenance, called upon her at that hostelry. They were eloseted together for nearly an hour, and then the visitress took her leave, departing on foot as she had come, and with the mantilla completely hid- CONNIE OO KS (E(0)