Beadle's Dime Novels, No. 11 — page 70: what you’re looking at

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

68 THE PRISONER OF LA VINTRESSE. “Yes, yes, child; but if they have put him out of the way—these Spaniards are devils when their blood is hot,” he said, huskily ; “I wish he had staid at home, the poor boy.” While they were thus talking, Minerva sat in the dimness and solitude of her own room. Candle she had none, but the moon shone now and then with a brightness that penetrated even into the somber corner, and played about her poor, pale face, with its white lips, and burning eyes. Every day for nearly a month she had known that the prowling Spaniard walked to and fro before her door, as if fiendishly to intimate that go where she would, he should keep guard, and be in readiness to deliver her, if possible, into the hands of her un- cle. This unmanly surveillance on the part of her persecutor had worn upon the poor girl, till she had become almost ema- ciated, and the want of proper food, added to her constant mental anguish, threatened to prostrate her with a long and dangerous illness. Once the man had written to her—she had flung his letter in the fire. Scores of times he had attempted to see her, but she was resolute, and had never allowed him to enter her door. Weak and despairing, she had given up hope, and looked forward to death with longing. She had even, when the delirium of hunger was upon her, revolved in her mind the different modes of suicide, and once she had actually ob- tained some charcoal, and closed her doors and windows, in the expectation of putting an end to her unhappy existence. It is strange how often, by the merest chance, the contempla- tion of a crime becomes suddenly a3 horrible as it had before seemed plausible. The simple fact of an humble neighbor, sent at the night-time by an overruling Providence, with a basin of soup, with the modest assurancethat she had thought the lady looked ill, and would relish it, changed the current of her destiny. The air of the room seemed fierce and hot; its darkness tomb-like, and Minerva, like one awaking from a trance, rushed to the windows, and, throwing them pen, - breathed once more (her tears gushing the while.) the delight- ful air, murmuring, “I was insane, Father, forgive me! help me to bear the burden till thou shalt see fit to remove it.” This little prayer gave her a relish for more. Strengthened comlclooks.com |