The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 186: what you’re looking at

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

CHRISTINA 159 countenance as she exclaimed, ‘‘ For Heaven’s sake, accept not the defiance of that man whose conduct has placed him utterly beneath your notice! ”’ The touch of that beautiful girl’s hand — light though it were, and gloved though the hand itself was — sent a thrill of unknown pleasure through the entire form of Octavian Meredith. He experienced feelings such as he had never experienced in respect to Zoe; so that with the rapidity of lightning did the conviction flash to his mind that he had deceived himself as to his real sentiments in respect to her who had become his wife, and that he loved her not as he now felt he loved the dark-eyed, raven-haired being who was before him. This conviction caused him to experience a strong sensation of anguish, which instantaneously followed upon the thrill of pleasure the light touch of her hand had sent with electrifying effect through his entire being. He comprehended all in a moment that his happiness was wrecked by the circumstance of having wedded another, and in a paroxysm of irrepressible emotion, he raised his hand to his brow. ‘Ah! you yourself, sir, are smitten with horror at the thought of being placed in a position to take the life of a fellow creature,’ and the young girl, thus very naturally mistaking the cause of his excitement, clasped her hands entreatingly as she went on to exclaim, “ Tell me that you will not accept that bad man’s defiance. Pardon this im- portunity on my part, but believe me, it would make me very, very wretched indeed.” The nature of this colloquy, the close contact into which it brought Meredith and the lovely stranger, the variations of feeling and emotion which the circumstances developed on her part, all contributed to display her beauty in different lights, and to afford him a reading into the innocence, the generosity, and the kindness of her soul. If he had felt him- self attracted toward her on those few occasions when he had casually passed her in the street, when he had neither spoken to her nor heard the sound of ‘her voice, and had only obtained transient glimpses of her charms, how much more deeply was he interested in her now that she was there close to him, that he could look into the depths of her fine dark eyes, that he beheld the pearly whiteness of her teeth, that he had leisure to examine every feature of her beauteous face, —" ECORANICLOOO SS) (C(O)