Penny Blood Serial Cover — page 163: what you’re looking at

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

ALFRED: DE ROSANN. 155 Gendarmes, and the stranger was taken prisoner. It appears that he had committed a most horrible mur- der on the person of some nobleman at Paris—”’ “ Was®not his name Francois?” exclaimed De Rosann, thrown entirely off his guard by the resem- blanee which this singular tale bore to the one he had heard narrated at Brest, and recollecting the circum- stance of the deceased: malefactor having lodged at a farm-house in the neighbourhood of St. Malo. “'Lhat was his name,” returned the farmer, casting a searching glance at Alfred, who now noticed his inadvertency, and became red with confusion. - * We were reading o’ this very trial a day or two ago, in an old number of some journal,” said Belle- Rose hastily: “but pray proceed; your account tallies exactly with that which we perused in the newspaper.” o ‘There is but little more to add,’’ continued the farmer, from whose mind all suspicion—had he for a moment entertained any—was entirely banished by the address of Belle-Rose. “The stranger was con- veyed to prison, and was condemned to expiate his crime at the galleys for life: Since that moment the apartment he occupied has been closed up; for my father, who was somewhat superstitious, declared that: the ghost of the murdered nobleman would not fail to haunt it on the anniversary of the day when Francois was arrested by the Gendarmes.”’ | ‘¢ Has it never been opened?’’’ inquired De Rosann. “Once or twice I have myself visited it to show my wife that Iam not afraid of ghosts or spirits,”’ answered the farmer ; “ but as the house is large enough for my small family, and for an occasional traveller or friend, I have never thought of turning the chamber to any use.”’ | “6 Well,”’ cried Belle-Rose, rising from his chair, “if you will have the goodness to conduct us to the haunted apartment, I will soon show you that my courage is not to be intimidated by the ghosts of all the murdered counts and marquises in France. But a Connicloookxs (C@