The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 234: what you’re looking at

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

THE OATHS 207 his looks seemed to settle upon them both. But his eyes, having now suddenly ceased to roll, glanced only with a glassy and inanimate light, not as if the mind itself, with the sense peculiar to those orbs, were shining through them. Then the man slowly turned away, and still wrapped in a profound slumber, still iron-bound by the influence of somnambulism, still proceeding mechanically as if a mere walking automaton, he took his departure from the chamber, shutting the door behind him; and a few moments after- ward Adolphus and Ethel heard the outer door, namely, that of the dressing-room, likewise close. “Oh, we have indeed been most unjust toward each other!’ cried Adolphus, turning his looks upon the coun- tess. ‘‘ For that man — ” ‘“ Yes, we have been most unjust,’’ replied Ethel, ‘‘ for the horrible mystery is now cleared up, and that man is the murderer of his master.” “Come, let us leave this chamber,’’ said the young earl, “and thankful ought we to be to Providence for having brought us hither on this occasion to behold what we have just seen. It is a mercy which we perhaps little deserved at the hands of Heaven.”’’ ‘“ And in remembrance thereof,’ exclaimed the countess, fervidly, “‘ all the remainder of my life shall be so spent as to prove an atonement for the past.”’ They issued forth together, and returned to the ante- chamber where Ethel had previously sought Adolphus. ‘‘ Our conversation took such a turn,” said the countess, “almost immediately after I joined you here just now, that I totally lost sight of the real object for which I came. Ah, little, little did I foresee that events were to flow into such a channel as to lead to the mutual conviction of each other’s innocence! I came just now to tell you, Adolphus, that the villain Makepeace, — he whom we have now dis- covered, beyond the possibility of doubt, to be the assassin of the master who was at least so good and kind to him, he whose guilty conscience conducts him, amidst the restless slumbers of the night, to the scene of his foul crime — ”’ “What more has this man done?” asked the young earl. “I see that there is something hanging heavy upon your mind, Ethel, or, rather, provoking your indignant sense of sore outrage. And I too am smarting under ) GOMINGIOOKS (CO