The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 183: what you’re looking at

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

162 REYNOLDS’ WORKS of this night were ended when in the adjoining room I enumerated all your minor crimes, — crimes which though great in themselves were nevertheless nothing to that which has yet to be proclaimed. And yet even that too was darkly hinted at, but not so darkly that it failed to touch your conscience. Do you not perceive that the finger of Heaven has manifested itself in all the incidents and oc- currences which have been hurrying you on toward the catastrophe? By the agent of your own villainy were you stricken down, so that in the first moments of returning consciousness you might betray to that vile Frenchwoman — another agent of your iniquities — the tremendous secret which for nearly twenty years must have sat like a hideous nightmare upon your soul.”’ It would be impossible to describe the ghastly horror which the countenance of the guilty Marchmont displayed while Queen Indora was thus addressing him. He trembled from head to foot with a series of visible shudderings; the per- spiration burst forth, cold and clammy, upon his brow; all his features were convulsed; it seemed as if he were about to fall down and writhe in fearfullest agony like a stricken serpent. ‘“ But even without the testimony of that Frenchwoman,”’ continued Indora, ‘‘ was there a sufficiency of accumulated proofs to brand you with the full stigma of your enormous guilt. Do you doubt me? No, you cannot. Yet step by step shall you pass through this ordeal. Come with me.” The queen drew aside the sable drapery at the end of the room facing the door by which she and the duke had entered from the tribunal, and another door enabled them to emerge upon the landing. This Indora traversed, still followed by the duke, who mechanically dragged himself along, but in a state of mind that it were impossible to describe. If ever a man felt that hell might be foretasted upon earth, and that it was possible to pass through a series of worldly horrors sufficient to prepare the soul for the torments of hereafter, that man was the Duke of Marchmont. All his energies seemed now paralyzed; he was obeying the queen only as an automaton might have acted; his faculties were growing so numbed under the influence of intensest, most harrowing horror, that had she, being immortal or invul- nerable, led the way into a fiery furnace, that wretched Gomicdoc CS (E()