The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

THE STUDY 29 It was with a tone and look of benignant remonstrance that Lady Octavian thus spoke. Taking a taper in her hand, she accompanied Rachel to the story above, where the young woman and Honor jointly occupied the same chamber. Zoe then retraced her way down the staircase toward her own apartment, on entering which she recollected that she had left her watch in the drawing-room, on account of having accidentally broken the particular chain she had worn that day. It was not altogether without a certain feeling of apprehension that Lady Octavian crossed the passage and reéntered the drawing-room. The circumstance of the preceding night, and the legend she had heard in the morn- ing, had been vividly recalled to her memory by the spectacle of Rachel’s fears. But Zoe did her best to throw off the feeling that was upon her,— which was indeed repugnant to her own good sense, — and of which she was all the more ashamed after the sort of remonstrating lesson she had a few minutes back been reading to Rachel. Entering the drawing-room, Lady Octavian Meredith took the watch from the table where she had left it, and she then issued forth again. But scarcely had she crossed the threshold, scarcely had her foot touched the floor of the passage, when she nearly dropped the taper from her hand, and she could with difficulty express an ejaculation of terror on beholding a dimly defined shape gliding onward in the distance. She was suddenly transfixed to the spot with a cold terror. If she could have seen her countenance in the mirror at that instant, she would have been horrified at it, for it was pale as death. Her eyes followed the form with the natural keenness of her vision sharpened to the intensest degree. Whether it were fancy, or whether it were reality, she could not subsequently determine in her own mind, but it certainly seemed to her that the shape was that of a tall, slender young man, dressed in dark garments, and that he was gliding onward with footsteps completely noiseless, raising not the faintest echo in that long passage where even the slightest sound was wont to reverberate. The apparition, or whatever it were, was lost in the ob- scurity prevailing at the end of the passage. Zoe staggered across to her own chamber, and sinking into a large easy chair, felt as if consciousness were about to abandon her. But by one of those sudden and almost preternatural efforts EOMINGIOOKS (CO) im